As the North American distributor of PrimaLuna, I feel I must chime in on this thread and would like to answer everybodys question by name...
Blazen69: You can make the sound of the PL8 go in any direction you like by swapping tubes, as well as one of the two plug-and-play I/V op amp upgrade kits we have available. One kit even allows the most experienced audiophiles to use their favorite bypass and power supply caps right on the op amp board.
Foster9: I wish I could comment on Raysonic, but Ive never heard the name in any way shape or form up until this post, but Im sure its a great product. By researching I see the Raysonic player you mention has been on the market twice as long as the PL 8, however the ProLogue has already received rave reviews from some of the biggest magazines in Europe, and will have reviews from the biggest magazines in the U.S. hitting the shelves very soon. There is a longer lead-time for reviews in the U.S. and many companies never even get considered for review.
Mrjstark: Thank you for saying you feel its a great CD player. I tend to agree, but I must correct you on a couple points. The price of the PL8 since day one was set at $2499. It was never implied that the price would be $1500 or even $2000. In fact, in Europe the retail price is well over $3k (they include VAT in their published prices), and they are selling very well over there. There has only been one PL8 for sale by a private party on Agon classifieds. We had to use Googles cache system in order to find the listing. Where most players will drop in value by as much as 50% when re-sold, this seller had his PL8 for sale at $1999, and sold in 2 days. A few months back a dealer who we no longer do business with was closing out their stock, and they sold their ProLogue Eights very quickly.
Bonger: I do not know you, and I dont think you have an axe to grind, but your statement that the PL8 is merely lifted & slapped together from Cayin products is simply un-true. This player is a ground-up design, as are all the PrimaLuna products. The only common thread PrimaLuna used to share with Cayin is the chassis. Cayin stopped making amps using that chassis because we asked them to. We sell more PrimaLuna worldwide than they do Cayin under their own name, and the Cayin factory did not want to lose our business.
In the world of CD players, with the hundreds of models made by hundreds of manufacturers
there is only a handful of transports, DAC chips, op amps, and upsampling chipsets to choose from. It is not uncommon to find the same transport in a $1000 player as you find in a $10,000 player. What is truly unique about the ProLogue Eight is our SuperTubeClock and our Super I/V op amp kits. Both features utilize technology never before used in CD players, and both are truly incredible.
You can read more about both features at http://www.primaluna-usa.com
