Has Anyone Uesed A PrimaLuna Amp With Harbeth Speaker's

Read Herb Reichert's Stereophile review of the 86dB efficient Dynaudio Contour 20   with the SMALLEST $2199 PrimaLuna power amp.    He stated  "The combo of Dynaudio Contour 20s and PrimaLuna ProLogue Premium played all the mountain ennui and fierce forward momentum that make classic bluegrass unique in the American songbook".   https://www.stereophile.com/content/dynaudio-contour-20-loudspeaker

Or the 87dB KEF Q350  where he preferred it over amps with many times more power, and higher cost.  https://www.stereophile.com/content/kef-q350-loudspeaker

Or this review of Wilson Sabrinas where the  36wpc $3199 DiaLogue Premium bested the $10,000 ARC REF75SE .  The reviewer said  "In spite of the low absolute power, the sound was incredibly captivating and dynamics were now seemingly more expansive than with either of the big transistor amps as well as the Ref 75."    http://www.hifi-advice.com/blog/review/loudspeaker-reviews/wilson-sabrina/ 

I've had a lot of Harbeth owners use PrimaLuna and can't think of any that were not happy off hand.  If you like to play your music loud in a bigger room maybe an HP would be better, but for many people a 36 watt PrimaLuna will be fabulous.   

I would never base any purchase decision of wattage.  Wattage means nothing except volume.  It has no effect on bass response or sound quality.  

Sigh. Power means undistorted and uncompressed dynamics, and, as Alan shaw's demo showed, that may mean some 500 watt peak power.

Here is a nice read why people prefer tubes!
https://medium.com/collectors-weekly/could-an-old-school-tube-amp-make-the-music-you-love-sound-bett...

Power means undistorted and uncompressed dynamics true, but if you have enough power you have enough power and having more buys you nothing, and people should not put weight on that as any guarantee of performance.  

 

There is no relationship to quality. Period. Wattage means only one thing. Volume.  

But you’re saying to yourself bigger amps sound better, and it’s because of power, right? Well, no. You can buy a Sony 100 watt per channel receiver for $148. It weighs 14 pounds and IT WILL bench out at 100 watts. And at low distortion to boot!!  

Now look at a pair of Pass Labs XA60.5 monoblocks. They weight 62 pounds each and cost well over $10,000 a pair. And they are only 60 watts. And that's it.  Is this a silly comparison? No, because it illustrates the fact. The Pass sounds better because of parts quality. Transformer size, capacitors, number of output devices, and all the other things that add weight to a quality amplifier. 

***Within a particular brand it’s okay to assume more power is better. But don’t think for a moment a 200 watt amp from Brand A will sound better than a 100 watt amp from Brand B***

In tube amplifiers it gets even trickier. Many high power tube amps get that power by simply running the tubes harder. PrimaLuna could have been designed to be 36 watts or 100 watts from a pair of tubes by simply raising plate and screen voltage and biasing harder.  Higher voltages results in tube shorts, and even if the amp doesn’t break, the tubes wear out quickly. PrimaLuna is the only company proud to say “low power on purpose” because they run the tubes cool. They want a product that you can use every day without having to think about counting hours and how much it costs. What’s fun about hifi if you can’t use it?

Some of the worst sounding tube amps I’ve ever heard had a ton of power. What they lacked was bandwidth. Power has no influence on whether or not the deepest bass or even the highest highs are sent to the speakers. Bandwidth in a tube amplifier is dictated by output transformers, the physical part that actually couples your speaker drivers to the amplifier. 

***Listen to me when I say this. Output transformers are the single most important and most expensive part in any tube amplifier*** 

Even the largest manufacturers buy them off-the-shelf and many spend as little as they can to make a buck.  Trust me I know these guys.  The bigger the company the more they are all about profit margin.  

Output transformers are half art and half science.  PrimaLuna not only designs but winds their own output transformers in house.  Look at the weight of PrimaLuna amps and preamps.    That's serious iron for both power and output transformers.