Marcel van Overbeek: When you visit our shops on a regular basis, you cannot have missed the small(-sized) amplifier I am going to write about. I am referring to the new PrimaLuna Prologue One integrated tube amplifier. It’s a "half-size-wide" design with EL34 power tubes (two per channel) pushing 43 (!) watts through its loudspeaker terminals (as measured by our Marcel Croese at an 8 Ohm load). Pre-amp tubes used are ECC83 and ECC82. All tubes find their origin in Russia and excell because of their very good price/performance ratio.
With this kind of power (for a tube amplifier) you don’t have to be afraid whether it is capable of driving real world "mature" loudspeakers. Subjective listening tests were done with many serious loudspeakers varying between about Euro 500,- per pair and a couple of thousand Euros per pair …
I really like to start off mentioning the cheapest speakers I have used: Mordaunt Short’s MS 914. It’s a floor-standing, two-way loudspeaker design with very neat looks, certainly if compared with other speakers in this budget-range. About a month ago the 914’s were "tested" in one of the Dutch hifi-magazines and it deserved a nice "recommended" … I really think that’s an understatement, simply because this "poor audiophile’s" loudspeaker is capable to deliver stunning results, both in terms of musicality and preciseness. When you manage to tie them to an amplifier like the AH! Tjoeb 66 (Tjamp!) or the PrimaLuna Prologue One, you will be surprised how much they will let you hear … In this Dutch magazine they raved about the holographic performance, but it’s a shame they never had the chance to listen to the PrimaLuna/MS 914/Reference Tjoeb combination. I suggest you do, when you are interested to buy a complete system with a budget in the Euro 2000 – Euro 2500 range!
But the real venues of the Primaluna Prologue One became very obvious when combined with one of my personal favorites, the Proac Future .5. This is a rather unconventional 3 way design, bi-polar on the top-end (band-tweeter and mid-driver) and a ported bass cabinet, venting on the bottom (downfiring!!) of the loudspeaker, making the total thing a piece of cake to place in any given room or environment. Perhaps you know a little about "open baffle" designs; mostly this kind of loudspeakers are capable of throwing a wide and deep soundstage when placed correctly in the listening room. Add to that a tube amplifier (tubes are very holographic too!) and you can come up with a soundstage lots of audiophiles (still!!!) dream of!
During my listening tests I used several front-ends like the Reference Tjoeb, the new Copland CDA 822 and the Michell TecnoDec / Tecnoarm / Goldring Elite analog set-up. In the analog front-end I mainly listened to the final prototype of our upcoming AH! Phono pre-amp (the P-Box but I don’t know if that’s going to be the the real modelname), which in the meantime, has become very familiar to me, because I have listened to and compared it during several months in many system circumstances (but more about that later on!). Signal-cables used through out were our AH! LS Direkt KB8 loudspeaker and AS Direkt KB8 interconnects. The AC-cord was replaced with an AH! AC Direkt KB10 powercord, because I feel the differences between these and most standard-delivered ac-cords are way to big to be denied and even to be discussed here!
I started my listening sessions on a quiet Tuesday morning, after a full weekend breaking in (the unit was switched on for the first time on Friday morning), playing some cd’s I brought from home. One of my all time favorites, Tori Amos. Strange little girl she is, and I loaded the trays of simultaneously connected Copland CDA 822 and Reference Tjoeb, and off we went … From the first note and the first breath, I immediately recognised my preferences for tubes in general. Exactly the thing I get at home, between all the glowing bulbs … The whole performance is airy, breathing and communicating on a high quality level. Listening to Tori, word by word felt very comfortable and natural. Again I fell in love with her (yes it’s again and again and again …). While the reproduction of her voice is of exceptional quality, the articulation and scale are of real high-end quality! The precision heard here is as analytical as one might expect from a plus 3000, = Euro solid state amplifier and at the same time as natural as one should expect from a plus 3000, = Euro tube amplifier. But … please don’t forget we are talking about a 950, = Euro (only) integrated tube-amplifier. It’s hard to believe, even for me who has seen and heard so many different tube-amps during my work and also during my off-work hours (yes, at home I keep on playing with my cd’s, records and musical toys). So next I swapped to the record spinner, which was carefully set-up for a couple of demos. It’s Michell TecnoDec’s introduction period. Believe me, I really do know all sonic properties of this deck, and as some of you might know, I have indeed become a Michell fetishist (at least as long as no Oracle Delphi is near !!!). So from the first minute the new Michell arrived, I started to play with it, as always under many different set-up circumstances.
Slowly dropping the needle in the intro groove I sat down to hear what Miss Dido had to tell me … This record is a Classic Records reissue and one of exceptional quality. Yep: it’s all there, exactly like I expected it to do … It’s funny, I am no longer surprised now, and I even feel a little guilty because I am listening to the system, like I am listening to systems costing an awful lot more than this one … How fast you get used to those exceptional things in life … The PrimaLuna Prologue One’s impact on this very dynamical recording is simply stunning! No way can a tube amp sound so fast, so dynamic and so relaxed at the same time. Rhythmically snappy and a bass foundation to envy when low watt S.E. tubes are your piece of cake … Synth bass lines and low bass drums are dry, though "fat" enough to be convincing. And the human voice presentation, again, is to die for. If I am asked to make a choiced, I feel that is the Prologue One’s strongest part.
Listening to the Bouke Oosterhout guitar record with closed-eyes, showed me the real man, playing beautiful traditional classical 6-string guitar music in a chapel (in England). This man was my father’s best friend (and sadly died several years ago), and I used to hear him play at least a hundred times. At home, in chapels and music-halls. The nose-breathing, the nail- ticking, the emotion: it all was there! But also the acoustical environment, which they seemed to have captured so perfectly, that I almost literally felt like looking in the chapel’s space! On the back of the LP, there’s a picture taken during the recording, so it is easy to imagine the "light" and space, and that coincides with what I hear in front of me with closed eyes. Brrrr …, goose bumps all over me. Hey … Wake up! Is this for real? How for "valve" sake, can a 950, = Euro integrated tube amp with only 43 watts, possibly do these things which you only get as a gift when you are listening to amps costing ???? times as much? May I suggest here that the PrimaLuna Prologue One is a real High End bargain? In that case I confirm IT IS!!
Oh, and before I finish this story. Herman came up with the following plan. While 950, = Euro is already ridiculously low for so much amplifier, he offers another 100, = Euro cash discount, or a 125, = Euro AH! AC Direkt KB10 1, 5 mtr power cord, to those PrimaLuna ProLogue One customers who are willing to spend some time to publish their story on paper about their experiences with this little tubed miracle … He firmly believes that equipment-owners are the best people to judge, simply because they spend the most time to find out, and the best people to advise other interested people, simply because they have no real commercial interest.
Can you imagine what this means? It means that you get it for Euro 850,-!!! Is he crazy??? Maybe he is, maybe he is not ….. But anyway, take your chance as long as this offer is valid and ask for details in our shops.