Has Anyone Uesed A PrimaLuna Amp With Harbeth Speaker's


Hi guys, I will be on the market soon for a new amp and I keep looking at the Primaluna Amps, has anyone heard the Primaluna Dialogue Premium amp driving a pair of Harbeth's 30.1 speakers? these are 87d/b and I am not sure how this will work out?
bigred71
willemj
Just look at these Stereophile measurements: https://www.stereophile.com/content/primaluna-dialogue-premium-power-amplifier-measurements it has a pretty bad load dependent frequency response. You might as well buy yourself an equalizer. Moreover, its output of little over 20 watts is not enough to drive the Harbeths. Just do yourself a favour and do what Harbeth’s designer Alan Shaw suggests and get a beefy solid state amplifier. Even very good ones will cost less and will sound far better.
If you read the Stereophile article you’ll see the following, the 25 wpc is in low power triode mode, see below. The amp met the 42wpc spec. As far as quality goes, reliability and quality control in the primaluna line are halmarks. These are top shelf amps that will last a lifetime.

...With two choices of output tube, each capable of being operated in Triode (green LED) or Ultralinear (red LED) mode, and with three output-transformer taps available, the DiaLogue Premium offers 12 different ways of being used, and is therefore 12 different amplifiers in one chassis.
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/primaluna-dialogue-premium-power-amplifier-measurements#OGDKVfi7...
I own the PL Dialogue Premium HP amp with 8 KT150 and 12AU7’s per monoblock  to drive my Magnepan 20.7’s (87db) and the sound is truly glorious. I’m certain they will make your Harbeth’s sing.

Cheers 
Harbeth’s sound good with both solid state AND tube amplification. It all comes down to personal preference. I’ve owned Harbeth’s for about eight years (SHL5’s and two pairs of 40.1’s). In that time, I’ve used or tried three solid state amps/integrateds and six tube amps/integrateds... and while all of the amps sounded good, I preferred tube amps by a sizeable margin.

The other area of disagreement when it comes to Harbeth’s is amplifier power. Many are adamant that Harbeth’s need high power to sound their best. Alan Shaw implies that any run of the mill 100 wpc amp will
work fine. I think the "quality" of watts is more important that "quantity" of watts... excluding flea power and SET amps.

Here is how I’d rate the amps I’ve used with my Harbeth speakers:
  1. VAC 70/70 Signature (68 wpc)
  2. VAC 30/30 MK III Signature (32 wpc)
  3. Music Reference RM9 MK2 (125 wpc)
  4. McIntosh MC275 MKV (75 wpc)
  5. VAC Phi 200 (125 wpc)
  6. Bryston 4BST (250 wpc)
  7. Plinius SA-102 (125 wpc)
  8. Jolida 1501 Hybrid integrated (100 wpc)
  9. McIntosh MA2275 tube integrated (75 wpc)
I don’t care about accuracy and neutrality... I just care how it sounds.


Harbeth's Alan Shaw demonstrated the M40.1 in Hilversum in the Netherlands (there is a youtube video somewhere but I cannot find it right now). With some music, the peak power indicators on the monoblock power amplifiers indicated that they were producing more than 500 watts per channel.
Be cautious on the amp selection for the M30.1. In my experience, Harbeth speakers can really sound like mud with the wrong amp. With the right amp they come to life and sound much energetic and livelier.

I believe it’s not a question of whether the M30.1 sounds better with tube or solid-state. Apart from the "flavor" of the amp, it’s the current or power that brings the speaker to life. The M30.1 is a more difficult speaker than the SHL5 Plus and requires more current to sound good. If Tswisla finds the SHL5+ to sound wrong with the Primaluna Dialogue Premium, chances are the M30.1 will sound even worse with that amp.

With the M30.1, you need an amp that is sufficiently powerful and able to provide the current to properly drive the speakers. Otherwise it will sound lacklustre.