Prima Luna Prologue 2 vs Rotel RB-1572

Buy used the dealer will or should do work on it the PL2 is a pretty sturdy beast even with shipping i'd do it and i had to ship mine out to LA from Colorado turned out no problem but had the caps upgraded to Hovlands

keep an eye out here for one i paid $1200 with the phono bd and a nice heavy power cord and that was 3 years ago prices have come down seen a few for around 900

tubes have just blown me away and my friends are all quite impressed :)

Well I tried. Checked back with the local Prima Luna distributor and found the price has gone up 20%. Just after I spent 4 months skimming my social security budget to reach the old price. Guess tubes just aren't in my future.

And the phono stage is well worth the $199. I lived with it for 2 years before I moved up. I have Cornwalls.

Thank you Grinnell, Crankshaft and Saki70.

Yes it is purely 2 channel music - phono, tuner and CD - that I will be playing.

If I understand correct, the PL Prologue 2 will do best through 8 ohm high efficiency speakers and do less well through less efficient or lower impedance speakers.

Speakers are presently a problem for me because I used no foresight as to what I would be driving each speaker purchase with. As a result, it is only the 8 Ohm 98 db Klipsch which sounds good with any of my amplifiers.

However, the Polks must be driven by the McIntosh 70 wpc
MA-6100 and the ADS's must be driven by the 140 wpc Accuphase E-202. Otherwise the sound like krap

I certainly am leaning toward the PL Prologue 2 now, but in the back of my mind I think I could eliminate the speaker matching problem with the Rotel.

On the other hand, I have to have a tube setup before I go on to the great beyond, so PL here I come.

Thank again gentlemen

I have both the PL2 and Rotel products , specifficultly the 200w-5channel amp and their processor . The Rotel is now sitting idle as it was relegated to H/T use after moving to 2 channel in another room , then the H/T went away too . Both units have been trouble free . I used the Rotel for @ 3 years and have had the PL2 in use for a little longer .

If your primary use is 2 channel I would choose the PL2 . It is much more to my liking for music . More body and smoother sound . As above the Rotel can be a bit brash , I don't believe that you will have that problem with the PL2 .

The PL2 should be fine with the Klipsch speakers , a little ify with the ADS's depending on the loudness and room size and may be a bit troublesome with the Polk's .

One thing to remember about your two choices...SS is what it is meaning you are not able to change or fine tune the sound much if at all . Whereas , the tubed unit can change quite a bit with the ability to roll/change the various input and output tubes . You can call up the vendor , tell him what you would like to change and he (Upscale Audio) will suggest what tubes to change to and probably have them available for sale . And all of that is no more troublesome than unplugging the old tube and plugging in the new tube . The unit is self/auto biasing...you never have to mess with it . The down side to tubes is that you need to let them warm up to sound their best as leaving the unit powered up continuesley will wear out the tubes prematurely . The SS unit can be left on and be ready to go always .

Good luck .

Just offering my 2 cents as a general opinion. I owned a 200 watt Rotel, and while it had nice low end. It was rather harsh in the mids & hi frequency's. I do believe a Prima Luna would work great with the Klipsch and probably with the ADS. I have read that the Polk LSI are a little harder to drive. If it was me I would definitely go with the Prima Luna and take things from there. Good luck & have fun.

I have not heard the Rotel but I do have the PL2. Everyone who listens to my setup is very impressed with the rich warm sound. I have have used them with BW 602 s3 and Triangle Cometes the BW's were okay and the PL2 drove with no problem but it loved the Triangles. I had the phono board and it was very nice, quiet. I did move on to a tubed phono amp but i now love tubes lol