Upgrading from Primaluna


Recently went down the front end upgrade path and am running a nice table and phono now. I'm curious as to what the weaker link in my system is between my Primaluna Dialogue Premium Preamp and my Dialogue Premium Hp Power Amp. I'm considering swapping out the amp to a Ps Audio BHK250 for the summer to avoid heat, but am curious if I would be better off dealing with the heat and moving up to say an Allnic L-7000/Arc Ref 3 for the Pre. I'm happy with tubes on the front end, but curious if I'm running out of gas with 88DB efficient speakers and a single chassis tube amp. Which amp would you upgrade first and what benefits would you expect?

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Showing 1 response by sns

I'd agree with most of the above, work on room, the Hana could be improved upon. Moving away from tubes may not be what you want, I had modded PL Dialogue Four, tried moving away from tubes to SS for summer listening, didn't work for me. In my case went to 300B monoblocks, although that solution wouldn't work for you with 88db speakers. I do agree you'd have to spend much more to substantially improve upon PL.

I"d also try diffusion as well as absorption at first reflection points. The 10' width really does limit you. With that small of size of room I don't see how amp power is a concern, unless you have severe impedance curve and amp has trouble coping. Quality of those watts of more importance if impedance not an issue.