Why is there no love for Prima Luna?


I have noticed fairly negative comments on Prima Luna in various discussions. Granted, I’ve never heard their gear but they seem to offer quite a value proposition. Point to point wiring, auto bias, protection circuits, easy tube rolling, good parts and build quality. I had considered looking into the Evo series integrated but the brand seems to be downplayed on this forum. Anyone have direct experience as to why?
cincyhound
I own PL Dialogue Four amp, didn't much care for sound in stock form, too solid state for my setup. Modded with Takman carbon resistors, Miflex Kpcu, mundorf film and electrolytic caps, so much better! Newer PL equipment comes with Takmans. I regularly rotate this amp with Coincident Turbo 845 SET and custom built 300B monoblocks (many boutique parts within), different sound, don't feel deprived.

During the process of my diy mods spoke with Upscale tech, very helpful, no judgements of my choices! I've been into guts of much audio equipment (ARC, Cary, CJ, Art Audio and more) over many years, PL very good build quality, good parts layout, nice soldering. Mostly point to point, exception of bias board, whats not to like.
As far as buying Chinese, PL is only built in China, owned by US and European interests. If boycotting Chinese products is your thing, not too many products you can purchase! Virtually every electronic product you can buy contains Chinese made resistors, diodes, capacitors, wire, etc. I've owned a number of Chinese components over the years, never a problem with durability or dealing with Chinese people or business. Perhaps I'm lucky, only issue in dealing with audio people over 30 years has been two Americans. Good and bad people live everywhere.
Because Prima Luna isn't that great, even when there are many worst ones (try Line Magnetic, Ming Da, etc)

Say, if Grand Hotel Tremezzo charges you 75 euros a night to stay in their storage closet, would you call this "a great deal", "excellent value at this price point", "best bang for the bucks"?

How about an $100 Yugo?  Would that be "great buy at this price point"?

I once heard an all top-of-the-line PL setup (driving Maggie 20.7 or something like that) at my audiophile friend's place for hours.  He tried all genre of music to impress me about his PL line up.  I truly don't understand the humor.


Can "Made in America" brands (really: assembled in America) actually claim that every last strand of wire, every electronic component, and every connector was manufactured in the US?
Sez who? Prima Luna Rocks! Stereophile puts it Class A. I got Dialogue Premium HP Integrated and with the right tubes it is excellent. Drives a variety of speakers I've tried just fine. (Maybe the electrostats not so much.) Right now I have it with Revel F226Be (86dB) and it hangs in with the 4 other pretty decent systems I got going.
I bought a lightly used Prima Luna Prologue Classic about 6 months after they were released into the market for about half the price of new. I couldn't be happier. The only mods have been tubes; KT120's and NOS 12AX7 and 12AU7 tubes. I have used the Prologue Classic with a wide variety of speakers and currently have them paired with a set of ProAc's. All have sounded very nice with it. I have never had a single negative issue with this integrated amp. It sounds as good or better than most of the $2000 amps I have ever listened to. There are better integrated amps out there, but you have to pay more for them. I just choose not to because I like what I have despite the fact that I can afford much more expensive gear than I currently use. I really don't care if the amp is designed by Dutch engineers to exact standards and manufactured elsewhere. It's a global market whether we like it or not.