Primaluna?

I was introduced to PL last year when a buddy brought over a Dialogue One for me to listen to. He runs the top of the line VAC pre/power amps but started with the Dialogue One. He has >500k into his primary system. He listened to my system and didn't think I was getting the most out of my Magico A3s. Magico Speakers have a reputation of not being the easiest speakers to drive. He was correct! The Dialogue One sounded AMAZING with the A3s but didn't have quite enough power. My wife came up to the listening room and said "How can you go back to the Yamaha after hearing the PL?" She's not into the stereo that much so for her to initiate the decision to upgrade amps was a great and welcoming sign. 

I went with the EVO400 power amp after auditioning ARC, Ayon and Dynaco amps. The EVO400 drives the A3s incredibly well! Amazing body, sound stage and overall sonics. My buddy came over after I got the PL and said he was impressed with how well the EVO400 drove the A3's as well with the overall sonics. His speakers are Magico S7s. 

You get great bones and choices with PL. Ultra Linear or Triode modes, Auto Bias, etc. Being able to run any power tubes in the amp gives you tremendous choices to tailor the sonics to your liking. 

This year I'm planning on adding the EVO400 preamp with a separate phono preamp, The Herron VTSP-3A is the front runner on my short list.

Keep in mind that there is so much that goes into having good sonics. I've heard people say that the room accounts for 50%. Prima Luna is a good bet to be highly satisfied with your amplifier choice considering all of the factors that go into generating awesome sonics.

Better than Raven. :)

       Agreed!

The one thing that makes tubes fail, aside from vibration, is high plate voltage, ( id not know if this is how it translates to English) 

I have a PL 300i and my partner has 2x 400 in mono. I really like them but they are very dependent on the speaker efficiency. 

With the 300 I have Tannoy Kensington and both of them are really good. I auditioned the Tannoy and Focal Sopra 2 at Upscale. When I was there my favorite music, Spanish Flamenco and guitar, sounded magical on the Tannoy and the 300, no need of sub where the Focal needed subs. But at my home in the US, definitely needed the subs, but they still probably being broken in.

At the courtesy of a peer that is using my home since December the speakers  will have a few more hundred hours of playing and open up as the ones in Upscale. 

With the 400s I tested a few speakers I own just to see how good the 400 are. The speakers were  Tannoy Canterbury (auditioned in my house for 3 months) , Wilson Audio Sasha, and my 3 favorite Avantgrade Duo Primo XD, Zignali Client 3.18 EVO and Sonus Faber Aida.

The 400s are very good, however when you put great speakers behind them you start to see some not as good elements on them. I do not have a $10-15K tube amp to compare it yet, a Pathos Heritage is coming, but when I compare them to the Gryphon Diablo 300 (a $13K SS amp) there is no comparison on how they sound.

In the same db range, the Diablo sounds bigger and relaxed much more dynamic and refined and these qualities are consistent across a wider db range but the Diablo is a solid state and powerful so it is not all that fair. The Diablo surpasses the 400s the ability to make the Zignali Client 3.18, Sonus Faber Aida and Avantgrade Duo Primo XD sound as close as they can.

The caveat here is that I usually listen at low-mid volume (4-12, 12 being with the dial at the top middle in the PLs) which it is in my experience that PLs need a little more to get going lets say 10-1 or 2. 

For the $, the PLs sound incredible specially the 300i and the 300s which I made the mistake not to get with a good pre, if I were to give my partner her PLs again I would have given her the 300s.

Would I buy  them again, yep specially for a smaller room and be careful with what speakers you hang from them.  

When I compared to what I internally saw to others, including the Raven in Kevin's video, the PLs are build with care and detail; the others at this price range looked like amps my son was building at 12. Some of them even dangerous given the voltages we are talking on a tube amp.

I am getting delivered a smaller set of Avantgrade for the 300 lets see how they sound.

PL makes great quality good sounding amps.  I owned one.  

Pros

--Superb customer service

--Excellent build quality (almost in the top tier)

--Easy to operate, great features, and reliability 

--Some of the best remote controls in the business!

--Can run a variety of different tubes, making it versatile.

Cons

--Weight.  But weight means quality, right? 

--Looks.  My subjective view.  I was never jazzed about their vanilla looks. 

--Not the last word (subjectively) in emotion. 

--Lots of competition

There's not doubt in my mind that the products are built like tanks and to last nearly a lifetime.  There maybe a mojo factor missing to the sound and sonic picture (again, my own silly subjective view that you should take with a 1/2 grain of salt). 

Others are spot on when they say this is a great place to start. 

I have an EVO 400. During a very hot summer with the air conditioning broken, I turned off the amp then turned off the rest of the components.

By mistake, I thought that I had forgotten to turn off the amp and I turned it back on again. Instead of reheating the tubes, the amp went immediately into protective mode...with all red warning lights on all tubes lit up. 

I immediately turned the amp off and waited 10 minutes for everything to cool down...the amp was ready to go. No issues.

So far haven't blown a tube in the 2 full years I've owned it.