Why is there no love for Prima Luna?

@dsper 

better cj's >> primaluna all day long...

audiophiliac steve guttenberg just named the 2.3 wpc (that's two point three watts per channel) decware triode amp his 2020 product of the year, tells everyone don’t worry about power ratings, if you live in an apartment or don’t listen to music loud, just buy it you will be happy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWA5txLQCvg&t=604s

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

@tablejockey

i too would like to know, anyone has done this successfully (pls supply spec of the caps) - i think the primaluna amps (even with tube upgrades) lack that last bit of transparency that the best tube amps convey, while still giving you the tube amp goodness/magic

@fsmithjack

i have not tried more current cary gear, it has been 10-12 years since -- i stopped when dennis had sold the company and checked out, my faith in the company was with my knowing him personally and that got me into his gear... that being said, the cary amps in my experience are fairly overtly tubey sounding amps in sq (in a good way) - more rounded, romantic sound, absolutely lovely with the right speakers, and if you are seeking that type of sound - very listenable, makes poorly recorded music very pleasant, voices and instruments have a sweet rich tone very dimensional, big wide deep image, bloomy bass... i still keep their 12wpc 6sn7 octal/300b se-i integrated amp for when i want a dose of that lovely sound...

having lived and worked in asia (and in hong kong and china specifically) for many years over my professional career, i would tell/remind folks:

1. you think america is a big country, lotta people, china is substantially bigger - so many kinds of people, many kinds of business people, greatly varying in professionalism, values and capability - they have a very capitalist mindset and act on economic interest, and are very willing to cut corners if they can get away with it... it is as much a comment on capitalism as it is on the chinese business people

2. chinese government control is pervasive, and self interested, though their chosen path to self interest (essentially self preservation) is to try to improve the economic well being of its populace and expand its reach/status outside the country so its citizens can ’feel proud’ of being chinese - one just needs to understand chinese history over the past couple hundred years to understand why these buttons are very effectively pushed by the government in gaining the support of the population

3. yes, rights of free speech and protest are not available to chinese citizens and the government does extreme and heavy handed things to protect its position and quash ’unrest’ as it sees it - no doubt about it; furthermore chinese government sponsors a very ’aggressive’ approach to gaining intellectual capital it does not have - a real problem for ’more advanced’ countries who develop that capital, and the chinese need to be actively deterred on this front

4. many many foreign ventures exist in china, though they usually have at least a minority chinese interest, not to mention sourcing agreements by non chinese companies to take advantage of lower costs of production compared to home countries the foreigners could try to make their products in

5. so it is true that if you buy something that is made in china, or made with parts inside that are made in china, the chinese government and chinese people (indirectly) benefit - but is it practical for us as consumers to stop this, given the extent of globalization -- of how so much of the world’s gdp is manufactured in a global/multinational supply chain? my personal feeling is no... china as a country and its government has to be contended with by the US, EU and Japan/Korea at the geo-political and geo-economic policy levels... which is leadership of these countries and alliances among them are so critical in this time

6. we should not forget that in america, there are many many people who work at wage rates they cannot really live on, and there is tremendous oppression in that sense too -- yes americans have ’freedoms’ the chinese do not have, but at the end of the day, what are the prospects for these unfortunate americans to live better lives?  my point is there is much injustice in this country as well, which i don’t need to enumerate - what has happened in this country in recent years certainly weakens our standing to call out how oppressive regimes like the one in china operates, as offensive as they are to our sensibilities

said my bit here with this, thanks for your patience, now back to normal programming...

@glupson

was it winston churchill or abraham lincoln who said - 'you all do as i say, not as i do' ???

arrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  lmao

@glupson



Chuck Miller’s System - Virtual Systems (audiogon.com)

Melody I880 Tube Integrated Amp

"...the company decided to invest heavily by building a factory in Shenzhen located near the emerging city of Hong Kong."

Melody HiFi


man, glupson ---  now you are just being downright MEAN!!!! hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

plenty of love for primaluna, some folks knock it as well, like anything else - i think the measurement crowd especially like to bash the pl amps

very good amps in absolute s.q., great value for performance and features offered

are they as good as the best tube amps that cost a lot more? i don’t think so (from personal experience i still prefer audio research and more recently, linear tube audio)

the made in china thing held against it is for real - whether justified or not;  like racism and misogyny - whether people say it out loud or not, its there, alot more folks have it in their hearts than they express for fear of backlash