PrimaLuna Dialog 2 User Review


There are not many user reviews for the PrimaLuna Dialog 2 integrated amplifier online so I offer this perspective for those that may be considering this integrated.

First Things First.

My equipment:

- B&W CM9 Full range speakers
- NAD T775 receiver (doing duty as the DAC)
- Samsung BluRay player (nothing special, HDMI output)
- LogiTech Squeezebox (coax output)
- Dialog 2 (Of course)

My taste in music:

Rock and alternative, heavy is preferred. My playlists include the likes of Volbeat, Halestorm, GreenDay, LinkinPark, Offspring, DragonForce, Coheed and Cambria.

What I do not listen to: Classical, Jazz, Easy listening, country.

Source Music Quality:

CD, DVD Audio (Rush-Moving Pictures), MP4A, AIFF, 24/92 from HDTracks.

* I was new to tubes with this amplifier.

Unpacking it:

The first thing you will notice about the Dialog 2 is that it is bloody heavy, it does weigh every bit of that 70+ pound shipping weight. It comes double boxed. Upon opening you will find the "white gloves" at the top layer for tube wrangling later on.

The dialog 2 is built like a tank (see my comment about its weight). PrimaLuna encourages you to open it up and take a look at the workmanship internally, I did, it is very tidy in there.

The remote is built from machined aluminum, it is hefty and in a pinch could be used for home defense. Opening up the remote (as you will have to do to change batteries) reveals cheap Chinese internals, my first remote arrived with the buttons running around inside the remote. The remote has rubber O-rings around each end to save your furniture from being damaged, expect to visit the hardware store yearly to replace these as they degrade quickly, especially if left in a sunny spot.

The Amplifier comes with the tubes (PrimaLuna branded KT-88) installed and all you have to do to get it going is remove the sleeves surrounding the tubes, wrangle the protectors off the single ended RCA style connector for the source of your choice (they are on there tight!), add power and speakers and you are in business.

Operation:

The amplifier is simple enough to use, turn it on, wait for the tubes to warm up and you'll be listening to music in 15-30 seconds. During the warm up period none of the functions work, so you can't select your source until the amplifier is ready to go.

The amplifier offers a Home Theater pass through source selection, this source by-passes the pre-amplifier section (12AX7 and 12AU7 tubes) and feeds straight to the power amplifier section. My thoughts on this feature; as you have to physically turn the amplifier on you will be up there waiting for the amplifier to warm up and listening to the wife complain because it doesn't respond to a remote control. Sure the HT pass through helps it fit in with the home theater but it still needs special attention, some thing the wife will let you hear about.

The sound:

This was my first foray into tube amplifiers, I was left dazed and confused!

From the beginning the Dialog presented very clear and focused vocals and well controlled bass, I kept waiting for the "full midrange" that tubes are said to have to kick in as the tubes burned in, I never found the full sound I was looking for.

I found the high frequencies to be sharp and hash, several songs I listened to, Coheed and Cambria's "welcome home" for example were so harsh I was sent running for the remote to turn down the volume.

Another sensation I experienced with this amplifier was no matter what the volume was set at, I always felt like if I just turned the volume up a little more I might find the sound I was looking for, I never did. In most cases after thirty minutes of listening I felt fatigued and would walk away from it.

I did try EL-34 tubes in it, the EL-34's seemed to move the frequency response up a little bit, I still had harsh high frequencys, the bass response was tight but reduced a little and the mid range seemed to respond a little more but not what I was looking for. Changing out the 12AX7 pre-amp tube did not make a significant difference either.

I did use the Demo download from HDTracks that has a couple of classical tracks included, the amplifier did well with these.

Customer Support:

A quick email to the PrimaLuna-USA website may or may not yield a response. If you complain in the right places you will probably end up talking to either or both of the two main people in the company, Herman in Holland and Kevin in the USA, what other company, hi-fi or otherwise can you say that about?

My dealer was as helpful as they could be but they had no one knowledgeable in tubes, trying to make a decision about which tubes would meet my musical tastes was frustrating to say the least.

Summary:

To be fair, I am not the audiophiles audiophile, both my equipment and music/quality tastes and choices probably did not showcase this amplifier in its best light.

The Dialog 2 is very well built and with care should last a lifetime, although I have my doubts about the longevity of the remotes internals. From my limited experiences the PrimaLuna KT-88 tubes seem to be of similar quality to most of the new manufacture tubes available on the market. One of my KT-88's burned out at about eight months, they are warranted for six months ...

For a heavy rock and roller with average source material I found the sound to be harsh and fatiguing and generally lacking in the fullness (low-mid range?), what it lacked in "fullness" it offset with razor sharp vocals (I don't know what range contributes to this but it was there). The bass is very tight and controlled. I imagine that this amplifier is much better suited to Jazz and Classical.

The home theater pass through lets you use the Dialog 2 as part of a home theater, I found this function to be of limited value as I always had to travel physically to the amplifier to turn it off and on.

If you are a newby to tubes definately take a demo model home before you commit, if the sound is not what you are looking for you will be on your own "tube rolling" to get that sound unless of course your dealer has some very experienced people on staff. Tube rolling my be fun when you are feeling experimental, when you are looking for a certain sound, the lack of information on the sound qualities of various tubes make it just expensive and frustrating.

So how did I finally get the sound I was looking for? My dealer let me trade the Dialog 2 for a SimAudio product and I've never been happier.
aussiejetpilot
Charles1dad hit the nail on the head. Definitely a mismatch of equipment. Case in point I borrowed a buddies Pass Labs X250 and didn't care for it at all. My ears were bleeding from the midrange energy. The bass was killer and some probably the best bass I have heard in my system back then. However, overall the amp was too cool sounding for my taste with my speakers. They needed a warmer amp for my listening tastes. Doesn't mean it was a bad amp because its not. Just not a good fit for my needs.
I’ve owned the prologue two as well as the dialogue two. I sold both due to to upper frequency harshness. It did not matter what type of tube or speakers I used. However, the Prologue Three pre-amp is excellent. Recently I paired it with the Prologue Four and found excellent synergy with no harshness after experimenting with different tubes (really like the winged 6550c). I believe the upgraded components you get with the Prologue Two and Dialogue Two is the problem.
I tend to agree that KT88 and KT120 do NOT sound good in the Premium. I even put in NOS Mullard 12AU7 to tame the sound and wasn't satisfied at all. I have found Gold Lion KT77 and Mullard re-issue EL34 sound the best along with the Mullard 12AU7 in the rear slots and I picked up a set of Psvane 12AU7 and they sound very good. Once you get the tone you like from the power tubes then work on the 12AU7's and you should be able to dial it in.
Lots of good points have been made in this thread regarding synergy, source components, tube types, etc., so I won’t repeat them.

As a happy owner of a DiaLogue One for over 6 years, and a heavy/extreme metal lover, I can relate to some of the points made in the original post, but one of the facts that needs to be mentioned (and seems to have been overlooked) is the quality of the recordings themselves. In short, most metal and related genre releases sound terrible. It really is that simple. Harsh, bass-heavy or bass-shy, flat, compressed, shrieking, etc, etc... I know, since I own at least 3000 genre CDs (anything from Burzum to Maiden to Emperor to Heaven Shall Burn to Satyricon to Anathema to My Dying Bride to Goblin to Blind Guardian to Opeth to In The Woods to DragonForce to Rhapsody to... you get the idea!). I LOVE this type of music, but the reality is that most of that stuff is not meant to be reproduced on a hi-end audio system, and the Prima Luna is actually quite revealing for a tube integrated. Garbage in, garbage out. You are better off playing this sort of thing in the car, frankly. I know I tend to enjoy it more there.

There ARE many decent recordings in the genre, however, and in those cases the amp will shine, but it is true that you may be better off with a different unit if your tastes are 90% metal. I do listen to a lot of classical and soundtracks as well, and I mostly love what I hear from the PrimaLuna. I did try out many different tubes, etc., but I found this to be an expensive exercise in nitpicking and settled on the tried-and-true Gold Lion KT-88 re-issue, and after trying a couple of Telefunkens, EH, etc, put the stock smaller tubes back. To my ears, this combination sounds right 90% of the time.

For the record, I drive a pair of Sonus faber Elipsas SE’s with the DiaLogue One, with no issues. Source is an Oppo 105 connected to a 2TB drive. Cables are all Nordost. Analog is humbler: a Pro-Ject RM 5.1 with a Dynavector 10X5. But I mostly listen to digital these days.
absolutely correct !  beyonddarkness has illuminated our path and returned us back to... the quality of the recording itself.