Features
- Stereo to Mono Switching
- XLR Input
- Takman Resistors
- AC Offset Killer
- Triode/Ultra-Linear Switching:
Remote Controlled
- Adaptive AutoBias
- KT150 Compatible
- Point-to-Point Wiring
- Bad Tube Indicator
- Wide-Bandwidth Output Transformers:
Largest
- Toroidal Power Transformers:
Largest
REMOTE
CONTROLLED TRIODE/ULTRA-LINEAR
SWITCHING
Do you have some classic rock albums
you used to love so much that have
now ended up left on the shelf,
un-played for years? How about jazz
or classical recordings from the
60’s? Every audiophile has albums
that they used to play, but stopped
because they are harsh, brittle, or
bright. There is a solution. Triode
and Single Ended Triode (SET) amps
are popular for their warmer, fuller,
and easy to settle into sound. But
triode amps have limitations!
Ultra-linear has more extension on
the top and bottom, not to mention
greater power. They have greater
“pop” with a bigger difference
between light and dark, and loud and
soft. Having triode only is VERY
limiting. The best option is to have
both triode and ultra-linear.
PrimaLuna engineers in Holland
designed an ingenious circuit that
lets you change from triode to
ultra-linear with a push of a button
on the supplied remote control. No
need to get up and stop the music.
Make an instant comparison while you
listen and choose what you like best
for that song or album.
AC OFFSET KILLER - A PRIMALUNA
EXCLUSIVE
AC Offset Killer is about goose
bumps. The ones you get when music
comes out of a background so quiet,
you may say to yourself “Just how is
this possible?” PrimaLuna
custom-winds our own massive
toroidal power transformers that are
low in hum and EMI. But we wanted
more. Our engineers designed the AC
Offset Killer to lower transformer
noise to a place no other
manufacturer dreams of going,
regardless of how bad your
electricity is. The result? Sense of
space. Texture. The resonance of an
acoustic guitar or violin string
that seems to trail on forever. The
AC Offset Killer will amaze you.
BAD TUBE INDICATOR
PrimaLuna engineers wanted to make
owning a tube amp so simple you
would have no excuse not to have
your tube dreams come true.If a tube
fails, Adaptive AutoBias will
instantly put the amplifier into
protection mode so no parts can get
damaged. A red LED will light up in
front of the tube that needs
replacing. Simply plug in another
tube, and listen. No guesswork. No
smoking amp. No getting out the
soldering iron or dropping your amp
off at UPS.
TAKMAN RESISTORS
If you bought a lesser amplifier,
you would pay hundreds to make this
upgrade. Easy to identify through
their pink color, these premium
resistors from Japan are popular
with those who rebuild and upgrade
their gear. "Modders" love TAKMAN
for their low noise, linearity, and
musicality.
Stereo or Monoblock operation
It's as simple as flipping a switch,
and PrimaLuna EVO Poweramps
instantly switch from stereo to
monoblock operation! Buy one, and as
your budget grows your system can
grow too. The benefit of monoblock
operation is the amp now has dual
output transformers for the best
coupling with your speakers, and the
addition of a 2-ohm speaker tap
added to the 4 and 8-ohm taps. While
all PrimaLuna amps are made for
ribbons like Magnaplanars and
electrostatics like Martin-Logan,
you haven't heard anything until you
have heard a PrimaLuna monoblock!
![](images/EVO-remotes/EVO-remote-triode.jpg)
CUSTOM TOROIDAL POWER
TRANSFORMERS
Power transformers generate two
types of noise, magnetic and
acoustic. That's why toroidal power
transformers are used in the very
best audio products. Compared to
standard transformers, toroids
radiate about 1/10 the magnetic
field that pollutes music and
obscures detail. Additionally, the
absence of an air gap typically
means toroids have an 8:1 reduction
of acoustic noise. As transformers
are the most expensive components in
any audio product, manufacturers
will even house cheaper C-core and
EI-core transformers in an outboard
power supply box with an umbilical
cable rather than upgrade to an
expensive toroid. The increased cost
is significant, but PrimaLuna
doesn’t cut corners. All PrimaLuna
products use massive, potted
toroidal transformers. PrimaLuna
transformers are enclosed in a metal
housing and then potted in a
non-microphonic resin to further
reduce noise and to protect the
windings from moisture and
deterioration forever.
CUSTOM SUPER-WIDE-BANDWIDTH
OUTPUT TRANSFORMERS
Output transformers are the most
important part of any tube amp. They
determine how low the bass will
reach and how high the top end goes.
250 watts of power will have no top
and bottom extension if the output
transformers don't have the
bandwidth. We use lower power to
extend tube life, and bandwidth to
give you slam. Transformers are the
most expensive components in an
amplifier, so manufacturers save
money by using ‘off the shelf’ units
available on the market. PrimaLuna
output transformers are
custom-designed, wound in-house, and
massive. One reason why no other
brand sounds like a PrimaLuna. "The
flat tops and bottoms of these
squarewaves correlate with the
amplifier's extended low-frequency
response; PrimaLuna's output
transformers are of excellent
quality." -John Atkinson,
Stereophile Magazine
ADAPTIVE AUTOBIAS
What most companies call Auto Bias
is actually "Cathode Bias"- A
commonly used method that is cheap
to make, and often found in guitar
amps, but also $20,000 high end
audio amps. It reduces the available
power of the amp and runs the tubes
hard, meaning shorter tube life and
failures via "shorts". PrimaLuna's
Adaptive AutoBias is a true, smart
technology employing an array of
sensors to monitor tubes and make
adjustments seamlessly in real time.
More important, it is the ONLY
circuit of its kind that is truly "adaptive"
by addressing "tube pinch off" at
higher volumes, therefore reducing
distortion by over 50% and greatly
extending tube life. Adaptive
AutoBias is completely passive and
NOT in the signal path. The result
is low to no maintenance, long tube
life, and the lowest possible
distortion for amazing sound.
Adaptive AutoBias also provides
unparalleled flexibility by allowing
use of almost any tube on the market
today. It even has a fine-tuning
switch for EL-34 and
KT88/KT120/KT150 tube types.
POINT TO POINT WIRING W/ Swiss
Made Wire
You spend a lot of money on
interconnects. So why have the
signal go right from the RCA jacks
or speaker terminals into circuit
boards with copper traces so thin
you can hardly see them? What’s
high-end about that? PrimaLuna
employs Point to Point Wiring on all
products. The entire signal path,
including resistors and capacitors,
is painstakingly hand wired with
heavy-gauge cable by craftsman. EVO
300 and EVO 400 models use
Swiss-made, silver-plated,
oxygen-free continuous crystal (OCC)
copper with a Teflon dielectric in
the critical signal path for
superior signal speed and increased
clarity.
SMARTWATTS - EXTENDED TUBE LIFE
Tube life is simply a matter of how
hard you run the tubes. That’s it.
The only way to extend tube life is
to run them as close to zero as you
possible can, making sure it is not
so low you go into crossover
distortion. The life of a tube will
depend on two things: Plate and
screen voltage. If the plate and
screen voltage is high, you are more
likely to get tube shorts when you
turn the amp on and you get cathode
stripping which greatly effects the
cathodes ability to spit out
electrons. Manufacturers that run
the hell out of tubes to pump up
their power ratings will never tell
you what voltages they use. They’ll
say it’s “proprietary” as if it’s
some secret sauce. There is no such
thing. But if they told you that
they used 575, 600, or even 625
volts you probably wouldn’t buy. We
proudly tell you our tubes run at
just about 417 volts for the plates
and screens. PrimaLuna runs their
output tubes at a minimum
dissipation without going into
crossover distortion. When you look
at our amps, they provide less power
from each tube. With KT-120’s as an
example, a PrimaLuna will give you
only 21 watts per tube. So running a
pair of them you get 42 watts.
That’s a lot of power, but the
demands per tube are a fraction of
some manufacturers that give you 100
watts from a pair of KT-120’s. It’s
a cheap way to get big power, and
it’s cheap. In fact, free. To get
more power the right way is
expensive. It requires bigger
transformers, sockets, wiring,
resistors, capacitors, and the tubes
to do it. Which is exactly what
PrimaLuna did. But we didn’t stop
there. Read this carefully: Power
has nothing to do with sound quality.
Or bass slam. You can buy a 200 watt
receiver for $299, and it will even
have surround sound. Do you think
for a minute it will sound better
than a 50 or 100 watts high end amp
costing $10,000? Of course not. Only
first-time buyers think that way.
Experienced audiophiles know that
for the majority of listening
sessions, you use maybe 10 watts of
power.
OUR AMPS ARE PERFECT. BUT YOUR
SYSTEM MAY NOT BE
Ask any seasoned tube-head what the
most musical output tube is and they
will most certainly declare it the
EL34. Other amp manufacturers would
love to use it. Only PrimaLuna,
through our proprietary output
transformer designs, can give you
EL34 midrange beauty with top-end
air that goes on forever. And, bass
extension with so much slam, our
amps are used to power subwoofers.
However, every system is different.
What if you bought a speaker with
bass that overloads the room? Or,
that is too dark? Or, too bright?
What if you just want to have fun
trying the different colors of sound
from a vast pallet of tubes? With
other manufacturers' products,
you're stuck. They're a one-trick
pony. How are you going to fine-tune
your sound? Buy some different
cables?! With PrimaLuna, you get to
choose. Go for it. 6L6G, 6L6GC,
7581A, EL34, EL37, 6550, KT66, KT77,
KT88, KT90, KT120, even the
monstrous KT150. A future-proof
design, PrimaLuna is compatible with
NEW tube types not even thought of
today!
Specifications
- Power: Stereo Ultra-linear: 44
watts x 2 (EL34) (8Ω, 1% THD)
- Power: Stereo Triode: 22 watts x 2
(EL34) (8Ω, 1% THD)
- Power: Mono Ultra-linear: 85 watts
(EL34) (8Ω, 1% THD)
- Power: Mono Triode: 45 watts
(EL34) (8Ω, 1% THD)
- Inputs: 1x Stereo RCA, 1x Stereo
XLR
- Outputs: 4, 8, & 16 Ohm (stereo)
2, 4, & 8 Ohm (mono)
- Freq. Response: 10Hz-70kHz +/-
1dB, 8Hz-75kHz +/- 3dB
- THD: < 0.1% @ 1W (stereo) < 0.17%
@ 1W (mono),
< 2% @ Rated Power (stereo/mono)
- S/N Ratio: 91 dB, 105 dBA
- Input Sensitivity: 870mV (stereo)
880mV (mono)
- Input Impedance: 100kΩ
- Power Consumption: 300 watts
- Standard Tube Complement 6 -
12AU7, 4 - EL34
- Dimensions (WxHxD): 15.2" x 8.1" x
15.9"
- Weight: 66 lbs |