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My First Tube Amp PL Dialogue 5


Benjie

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Yesterday I bought my first tube amp. Wow! All the hype is true and more. A Prima Luna Dialogue 5 popped up locally on flea-bay for a fair price. Hours later it was installed in my system. But..... all was not well. Once I turned it on and let it warm up the sound coming out of my Cornwalls was not what I expected. It was very thin sounding with absolutely no bass. I had hooked up the cables into the 8 ohm connection since my speakers were 8 ohm speakers??? I was very disappointed and pretty much wanted to puke!

 

After some late night reading I tried hooking it up to the 4 ohm connections and alas boom! I cannot believe how beautiful it sounds.

I’m using my Marantz PM 8006 for the front end as it has my phono stage built in. I’ve been playing some of my favorite MQA files this morning. My wife even popped in to say how different it sounded. In a good way.

 

 

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fa8a5032ae05e4f722e91d79a547a88e.jpg8fd8364ef26c7c655976d57b2fd48e6e.jpg

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Congrats benjie - its easy to love the Primaluna amps! WOW - I had no idea what I was missing until I switched to my first tube amp - The PL Evo 400 - I use the 4 ohm taps for my Forte even though it says the Fortes are 8 ohm speakers - I love my Primaluna Integrated Amp

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6 hours ago, Benjie said:

Yesterday I bought my first tube amp. Wow! All the hype is true and more. A Prima Luna Dialogue 5 popped up locally on flea-bay for a fair price. Hours later it was installed in my system. But..... all was not well. Once I turned it on and let it warm up the sound coming out of my Cornwalls was not what I expected. It was very thin sounding with absolutely no bass. I had hooked up the cables into the 8 ohm connection since my speakers were 8 ohm speakers??? I was very disappointed and pretty much wanted to puke!

 

After some late night reading I tried hooking it up to the 4 ohm connections and alas boom! I cannot believe how beautiful it sounds.

I’m using my Marantz PM 8006 for the front end as it has my phono stage built in. I’ve been playing some of my favorite MQA files this morning. My wife even popped in to say how different it sounded. In a good way.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

fa8a5032ae05e4f722e91d79a547a88e.jpg8fd8364ef26c7c655976d57b2fd48e6e.jpg

my guess is the amp puts out more power at 4 ohms --------but nothing in the spec sheets seems to indicate that it  does

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18 hours ago, Retrograde said:

Hi Fido,

What is the sound difference you hear when using the 4 ohm instead of the 8 ohm on your EVO 400?

I have the same set up and never thought of using the 4 ohm.

Thanks.

When I bought my EVO 400 Kevin Deal told me to try both the 8 ohm and 4 ohm taps when I got it home with my speakers. The 8 ohm tap was ok but the 4 ohm tap was more dynamic, crisp and soundstage wider and deeper.

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Thanks Fido,

I'm going to give this a try.

My system is new so I didn't want to blow anything up!😂

Although the PrimaLuna info mentions 8 ohm and 4 ohm and even, if my recollection serves me well, 16 ohm (or was that the Fortes?), would there be a power output increase per channel? They don't mention this at all.

Cheers! 🍻

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On 5/19/2020 at 3:43 PM, Retrograde said:

Hi Fido,

What is the sound difference you hear when using the 4 ohm instead of the 8 ohm on your EVO 400?

I have the same set up and never thought of using the 4 ohm.

Thanks.

From what I've read over the years, in generic statement form: 8ohm tap has less bass but wider soundstage, better HF extension. 4ohm tap has better bass, narrower soundstage, rolled off highs. Of course the speaker plays a part.

 

In my experience, with Klipsch speakers: 4ohm tap improvement in bass outweighs any narrowing in soundstage. I have noticed very little if any narrowing of soundstage, but what sounds like a bringing forward of the midrange frequencies.

 

Final thought: The 4ohm winding should in theory be the one with the least distortion.

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I’m using the 4 ohm tap on my PL power amp with wharfedale Denton 80 speakers. It’s magic. 

I couldn’t agree more! It is truly magic. I’m re-listening to much if my catalogue.


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I have removed my PM8006 and put it up for sale. It was overkill to use such a beast only as a preamp.
I ordered a Parasound Zpre3 and have it up and running now. This is now a very simple setup. Tidal/Qobuz to Project Pre Box S2 to Zpre3 to Primaluna to Cornwalls. The sound is so much sweeter to my ears than any SS I ever had.


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