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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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j-wall OP
369 posts
 

@gasherbaum thanks for the insight. What did you prefer in the ARC over the Primaluna? I'm sure the higher ARC gear blows the PL out of the water, just kind of curious how and what you heard?

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gasherbaum
43 posts
 

Let me first make clear that I think prima Luna makes good gear and great stuff at its price point.  Although I think the ARC ref 75 se is some of the best value in audio.  That amp is amazing.  Now to answer your question - at the dealer where I did the comparison the ARC gear cast a much wider and fuller sound stage which is something I’m partial to.  The ARC also was better driving the speakers especially in the base.  Lastly, to me it was just more engaging and musical.  I just fell in love with the sound of the ARC gear over the prima Luna.  But I’m also very partial to ARC sound.  I had a boulder 2060 in my system and though it did some things better than the ARC ref 75 se I sold the boulder and kept the ARC as I just preferred the ARC sound in my system.  So just know im pretty bias in favor of ARC gear.

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