PrimaLuna ProLogue Premium Power Amplifier

“PrimaLuna’s ProLogue Premium has become my new reference for low-power, high-value amplification. Class A sound at a Class C price” — HERB REICHERT, STEREOPHILE

“This is an amplifier you can either start your tube journey with, or live with happily ever after. … With vintage Luxman, Marantz and McIntosh tube amplifiers fetching crazy money on the used market these days (not to mention their questionable reliability), make your life easy: Put a PrimaLuna Prologue Premium between your speakers and just dig it. You’ll be glad you did.” — JEFF DORGAY, TONE AUDIO

Is this a miracle? Is this a unique situation where a company just happens to stumble upon a perfect design and execution? No. It’s another PrimaLuna. And our fifth product in a row to earn a coveted Stereophile Class A rating. No other company has ever had five products listed Class A simultaneously, let alone when every product is under $5,000.

Herb declared “Equally obvious was how clearly and powerfully the ProLogue Premium reproduced bass. Even through small speakers, bass scale – the ability of deep sounds to also be big sounds, when they’re supposed to – was exceptional. High frequencies also had a captivating purity.”

So how does it happen? Bandwidth baby. And we have it. No other brand will ever sound like a PrimaLuna because they don’t have our custom designed output transformers that we wind in-house. We don’t care about power. You don’t use it. High power just burns up tubes and causes bummed out owners. We have customers using 36 watt PrimaLuna amps to drive subwoofers!

Couple that with their exclusive Adaptive AutoBias, long tube life, and build quality that shames amplifiers costing $10,000, and you have an amplifier purchase of a lifetime.

Don’t buy something because it gets good reviews. There’s no such thing as a bad review. And don’t buy into fairy dust. Want to know what’s best? It’s what reviewers use in their own systems. Do some research. You will find reviewers use PrimaLuna more than any other brand.

Dare to Compare

Compare PrimaLuna ProLogue Premium Power Amplifier to any other brand, at any price. You’ll be amazed.

PrimaLuna DiaLogue Class Power Transformers - Norman Audio

PROLOGUE CLASS 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.

PrimaLuna DiaLogue Class Output Transformers - Norman Audio

PROLOGUE CLASS 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. Our DiaLogue Class components feature the largest, widest-bandwidth output transformers we’ve ever made. 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.

PrimaLuna Point-to-Point W/ Swiss Made Wire - Norman Audio

POINT TO POINT WIRING

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. DiaLogue Premium 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!