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Primaluna phono stage Review. You got to read this!!!!

Posted by earnie3 (A) on May 11, 2009 at 12:48:38

I have in the past owned a lot of different gear and they all seem to have one or two different traits that one did better than each other. I have also owned about 5 or more different phono stages and I have never really been 100% happy until I spent believe it or not $200 on a phono stage yes people $200. I bought the Prima Luna inboard phono stage. When I talked to Kevin deal about this he said it was developed buy a man who used to work for goldmund audio, and as you know they make some very high end stuff. ( BTW I have no connection to Kevin deal at upscale audio they know what they are talking about and provide incredible service, I just call it how I see it). I said what the hell for $200 I guess it is worth a try. So my friend who built my speakers who is also a audio engineer installed my board into my primaluna dialogue one intergraded. My system consist of the dialogue one with sed el34’s, RT 12au7’s and mullard reissue 12ax7’s a vpi hw19MK4 turntable with a sama motor tnt platter super arm board and a highly modified rega rb300 and a benz glider 2 cartridge.

I dropped the needle on a couple of my preferred jazz records and my first impressions is it was very smooth sweet and well balanced right out of the box. As you know everything needs to get burned in, I have listened to a lot of great sound gear in the past and some of it sounded like crap out of the box new but after 100hrs or so I say to myself man this is a beautiful sounding piece. Well the same goes for this primaluna phono board I have about 250hrs on it now and I can honestly say it is the quietest phono I have ever heard in my life. It has beautiful smooth sweet midband very nice detail and air with controlled bass. It has great speed and throughs a incredible soundstage, and to my ears has great balance top to bottom and has incredible what I call suck factor where the music just sucks you in and you don’t want to stop listening.

I have own phono stages costing up to $1500 from trigon, sim audio, musical surroundings, and a few more and this hands down beats them all. I had a little get together over my house, six of my audio listeners were over my house and five of the six liked the PL phono better than the sim lp5.3 the lp 5.3 is very nice but its around $1500-1600 range. The PL has a texture and realism that the sim cannot touch. This PL phono is so dead quiet and has such a black background it blows my mind. My friend the engineer who installed it told me the way they designed it was brilliant and that is why it sounds so dammed good and quiet and also the board is very small but they used very high quality parts to make it. If you own a primaluna integrated or preamp and are considering buying a outboard phono under$1500 DON’T through you money out the door buy one of these phono stages you will be blown away buy it and your pockets and ears will thanks you happy listening …..

Edits: 05/11/09

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