whyrichard
Please let us know how the Rays Reserve EL34s go please, I'm interested. I will say that the PSVane EL34-PH tubes are really good for their price, I have a great Chinese source for a matched quad at $292
Can I get my Prima Luna to sound more like a SET/300B?
Dear Audiogon community,
I am ruminating on my current state of mind with this alchemy…
I have spent the past year upgrading my main system to a relatively glorious state… details below and in my profile.
I am at times in the sublime musical hallucination I seek. However I admittedly may be coming to the realization that the sound I yearn for in my heart may be ultimately obtained through a SET or 300B type of solution. And to get there I may need a 5-9K indulgence, in order to match the Nagra Streamer, Holo Audio DAC, and Pure Audio Project Duet Horn’s.
This is something that may take a while for me to enact…
SOOOO…. In the meantime…. What if anything can I do with the amp that I currently have, a Prima Luna Dialogue Premium HP, to obtain a completely enveloping, immediate, effortless, sublime, vivid, and delicious delivery of acoustic, jazz, classical, vocals, horns, strings, cymbals…. Sublime enveloping sensual euphoria…??
Can I get my Prima Luna to sound like a proper SET or 300B amp? Even close?
Some thoughts:
-Cap upgrade… Jupiter or Jensen or Duelund or….
-Main tubes to…. Ray? Mullard E34’s? Psvane PH or UK? Sophia Electric?
(Currently I run Gold Lion KT77’s, which are very nice when they work, but their unreliability is frustrating… in 9 months two go out and one has a high frequency distortion)
Or should I bite the bullet and jump in to a serious amp upgrade?
THANK YOU SO MUCH for your brilliant insight…
Cheers to musical alchemy.
R.
Details of my system: (brief)
-
- SPEAKERS: Pure Audio Project Duet 15 Horn (Mundorf Silver Gold Oil Cap upgrade and high pass filter, Anticable 4.2 Flex Internal wire)
- STREAMER: Nagra Streamer (Cardas Clear Coaxial)
- DAC: HoloAudio Spring 2 Level 3 Kitsune edition (Silversmith Fidelium RCA Interconnects)
- AMP: PrimaLuna Dialogue Premium HP Integrated (Gold Lion KT77 power tubes, Mullard NOS gain tubes)
- PHONO: Music Hall MMF-9 and McIntosh MP 100 Preamp (Goldring Eroica lx cartridge)
- ...
- 36 posts total
@sns +1 " Get a 300B SET if you want an amp that sounds like a 300B SET" @jasonbourne71 +1 "Single end amps are distortion-generating devices” correct! it’s due to non-symmetric nature of SET load-line up/down from tuning point! PP amps are good at eliminating symmetry problems, assuming maintenance/adjustments are done correctly. Nelson Pass designs are the best for SET sound fans! If speaker does have symmetry problems, due to static B-field symmetry issues around coil, SET connected proper way to speaker helps to cancel it, and really does sound better than excellent PP! |
Total Harmonic Distortion, peak watts... even RMS watts is deceptive. There are so many measurements that sound like they should tell you something concrete in high end audio that don’t. What stuff sounds like is what counts. Well designed 300b amps with good quality 300B tubes are simply stunning and realistic. |
Dear sublime obsessive of audio alchemy!!!!
Currently I can hear the air in the palm of the hand in the clap of “be my husband by Nina Simone.
Can hear so much more shape, attack (?), decay (?) texture (?) in the fellow and flute and percussion of yo yo ma Japanese melodies.
The top end shrillness either Matthew Hallsal was tamed, while maintaining top end sublime clarity and separation.
The imaging in this album is also really really tightened. Love it. Side to side, center, depth is like never before revealed. Heart drops. Jaw drops. Hair raises.
Killer touch on cymbals… Noise floor seems lowered, i think I am getting the calm quiet timing that people speak of on the silversmiths. The soundstage is a warm wet embrace.
I apologize to you all, I was a bit hasty in incorporating my kaliadascopic upgrades to my system, so that it is a little difficult to report on the components individually. And I know that most if not all require some degree of break in.
Recent upgrades since the start of this thread:
Cardas Clear Coaxial Cable (from Zen MC2): This had a wonderful effect, the sense of breathing mountain air after being in a hazy city. Wetness to the widening image and soundstage… poise to the positioning of the instruments…
Silversmith RCA Interconnects (from Duelund 16ga): There was a sense of precision and directness to the instrumentation (i was able to burn these in for 5 days on my frybaby).
Ray Tubes Reserve El34 (from Gold Lion KT77): These also contributed to the silky open soundstage and delicious texture to the instruments… the darkening off the blackness, the silence… the gravitas.
Duelund 12 GA Speaker wire (From Duelund 16ga): The depth of mids and bass speed and precision definitely improved over 16ga. It didn’t seem to reduce top end texture at all, simply adding more dimension and meat.
Anticable 12ga Crossover - 15” Driver in the Pure Audio Project Duet 15 Horns (From Duelund 16ga): I think I sense more bass speed and precision and depth, and perhaps some clarity to the mids
Anticable 4.2 Flex Crossover - Horn: this will happen next week after burn in on my frybaby)
Radiotechnique 12AU7 center gain tubes on the Prima Luna amp (from Mullard NOS 4003): yes on the spaciousness, the slightly quelled mids when compared to the mullards, and definitely more space and texture between and within the instruments. It’s lovely. I am hearing new dimensions. Horns and cymbals and cellos and so vivid.
Truly wow. I catch myself applauding spontaneously… dances with the lady. Lovely.
And so I will quell my restlessness and sit with what is really very sublime… some time in the future I will reward myself with a 300B, 2A3, or Pass Labs (?) amp for some future reward…
Thank you all i love these conversations.
Tasty bits. Sublime musical hallucinations to all.
R |
- 36 posts total