Prima Luna Premium Pre

Matt, thanks for your virtual analysis of my ears, cables, speakers and/something!

By way of reference, the amp to which I am referring is the Primaluna Dialogue Premium. Since I own this unit and have owned a MA2275, I think I am fairly qualified to make a statement as to which gear sounds better to ME unless you have some way of magically analyzing the performance of my system remotely.

While the amp does not have all power of the MA2275, it is more than adequate to drive my Totem speakers as I rarely listen to loud music anymore.

They sound different. You need to listen. Putting its simplistically, if you like rock, you will probably go home with the Prima Luna but if you like acoustic music the CJ mid range will win out.

I have owned Primaluna I sold it for a Manley labs, I have owned many MAC amps, and I still do So I think I am qualified as well....Typical ..another person that wants to hear hi end BACKROUND music??? You can get that in any elevator! I want to FEEL the musical event! isn't that what its all about buying all this hi end equipment? Otherwise would not a BOSE system suffice? NOT FOR ME!

The original poster asked about a preamp, not an integrated amp.

I saw this thread and smiled. I can assure you that PrimaLuna is everything that the experts say it is. As to the fellow that said he likes to listed to it loud, I just received this from another Mac owner that has 601 amps. He didn't sell the Mac...I don't think. But has the following things to say:

Kevin the Primaluna equipment arrived in fine shape, one Dialogue Premium preamplifier, and one Dialogue Premium HP power amp. I got them set up and currently playing with interconnects, so this is what I have found out so far. The following comments are compared to using a Benchmark HGC driving a pair of Mcintosh MC 601 amplifiers using balanced interconnects. If anyone say’s tubes are not for Magnepan 1.7’s they just haven’t heard the above Primaluna set up. It takes the preamplifier and the amplifier about one hour to come on song at this time, will see if it changes as it breaks in. The Primaluna is very quite you do not hear any tube rush through the 1.7’s. or other noise at any volume. The bass is very good, in some respects better than the Mac’s which surprised me, also the treble seems more extended. But as everyone knows the music lives in the midrange and this is where the Dialogue gear really shines. The Dialogue gear will not make a poor recording sound good, but on good recordings it doesn’t get any better. The thing that has really surprised me is the increase in dynamic range over the Mac’s, some of the criticism of the Magnepans is a somewhat compressed sound compared to some dynamic speakers, if that’s a problem get some Dialogues. To sum up the sound at this time there is just more there-there. Now I’m redoing my listening room and making some new equipment racks hanging the TV on the wall all of which I hope will help the room. People this Primaluna Dialoque gear is the real deal get you some.