Primaluna?

I just want to clarify that I’m not knocking Primaluna in any way, and plan to purchase one in the future. Was just sharing my experience with Kevin and what I thought about it.  I do think from my research that Primaluna makes a very well made, well thought out, and musical product.   

@brylandgoodman those are all fair points! It’s unfortunately quite human to assume people around you know and understand topics on a similar level. When you’re good at something it comes easy and natural and it’s hard to realize that others might not be on the same level. This can create conflicts in communication and can come off as arrogant or patronizing. It’s up to both parties of the communication channel to understand this and negotiate the right protocol.

on the PL site you can read this statement: “Output transformers are the most important part of any tube amp. They determine how low the bass will reach and how high the top end goes.” Of course this sounds like a marketing catch phrase, but it’s actually true.

 Here you can get deeper as to why this is.

I too was looking at PL's but decided to go with Rogers High Fidelity's Integrated AMPs.  Super happy with it, costs less than PL and are hand made in the USA.  Roger Gibboni is the owner and he is great to work with.  Complimentary lifetime upgrades and warranty included in every purchase !  Works very well with my high efficiency Klipsch speakers (99db) !

The first tube amp I heard was the Macintosh MC275 and it was a revelation. I had always dismissed tube amps as nostalgia but everything changed that day. I couldn’t afford the Mac amp but learned about Primaluna in the process and got a demo Dialogue One from Upscale. I loved it and thought it sounded every bit as good as the Mac, or close enough for me. A couple years later I wanted to try something else and got a Line Magnetic LM508 integrated. Have to say sound wise it was better than the Primaluna in every way, however it was also quite a bit more expensive and it’s a beast of an amp and runs very very hot. It also developed a buzz in a transformer and had to go to service. While it was gone for nearly 6 montths I put the PL back in. There were times I thought I could just live with this amp forever as it does everything right. However, so many flavors of amps to try so when I got the Line Magnetic back I sold it and the PL. Since then I’ve had amps from Linear Tube Audio, Mastersound, Tektron, Canary, Oliver Sayes, 300b SET mono’s from Grant Fidelity, and some solid state amps from Van Alstine, Odyssey and others. All very good, some great. But after all that I’m now back to Primaluna with a Dialogue Premium amp. Did some of those other amps sound better in some ways? Yes, but the PL gear is just simple, quiet, versatile, reliable and I actually like the simple, clean understated looks. And buying a used PL Dialogue could be one of the great bargains in HiFi. Now, a local HiFi shop just got an Evo300 amp that I might pick up and sell my Dialogue. Not sure it’s a huge upgrade but in the end it will only cost me a couple hundred $$ and could use the flexibility of the xlr inputs. So might be selling my Dialogue for the Evo. And I still have some other amps I want to try, but I just don’t think you can go wrong with the PL gear. Highly recommended. 
 

also, and not to get off subject, I have a Don Sachs preamp and love it. It’s not in the system right now but I think I’ll have a really hard time ever selling it. Don has also been great to work with in terms of support and advice. I’d love to hear his amp one day but just haven’t gotten there yet. 
 

Be well everyone and enjoy your music. 

Actually my experience with heavy weight as an indicator of sound quality includes CD players, DACs, streamers speakers, as well as phono-stages. This is not a causal explanation, but a virtual 100% correlation observation. Some of comes from very heavy cases for vibration dampening and heavy reinforcement every thing plus heavy duty power management. I have not dissected equipment to figure it out… but it is an observation. I mentioned this to a friend that owns a high end audio store for twenty years. He could only come up with a single exception to the rule of thumb… a piece of equipment I had never heard of.