Ayon Orion 2 or Prima Luna Dialogue Premium Int.?

The $700 difference in price is most likely attributed to the country of assembly or manufacture. But there is no sense getting into a made in China/ made elsewhere discussion given that the PCs we are using to answer your thread are all made in China.

Eight years ago when I purchased my Prima Luna PL2, I wrote an audio review here .

I have never heard the Ayon, so I can not answer your question directly. I can tell you my impressions of the Prima Luna and in eight years, I have never felt the urge to upgrade.

Rich

"But there is no sense getting into a made in China/ made elsewhere discussion given that the PCs we are using to answer your thread are all made in China."

Why would our PC's being made in China have anything to do with a tube preamp?

I've loved my PrimaLuna for some years now without one single solitary problem.

The Ayon Orion is made in China. Their other amps are Austrian.

I have not heard the Orion but have heard the Spirit 1 and it's a good amp. I have no experience with Prima Luna, but I certainly like the Ayon gear.

Rather than an Orion, I'd try to land a used Spirit here on Audiogon.

For what it's worth, I had one of the ealier Prima Luna 35-watt KT 88 tube amps for about 5 years and loved it. Very reliable, and I really liked the auto bias feature. I used it alternatively with an Audio Research tube amp with my Verity Audio Parsifal Encores. It had more of the traditional "tube" presentation than the ARC, with lots of "bloom" and sweetness without being overly thick or mushy. The Parsifals seemed to want a little more power than the Prima Luna had on tap, but at reasonable volume levels it was very musical. I wish I still had that amp to try with my Devore 9s, which do much better with lower-powered tubes. I have never heard an Ayon amp but the reviews have all been very positive. This is an interesting thread to me because I am considering both brands right now. I don't know why someone would make the statement that Prima Luna has reliability issues without presenting facts to back it up. "I know a lot of people who have reliability issues with prima luna" is quite a claim to be making without something more solid to back it up. I don't think Upscale Audio would continue to promote and sell these amps if they had reliability issues.