I second a few thoughts above,
. Soundman is correct about the low cost of parts compared to retail prices, for PL or any other manufacturers. Since PL has less advertising costs, they can focus more in R and D, and sell at a lower cost, so we consumers get more bang for buck
. I have the HP Integrated, and IMO, the 6 stock PL preAmp are crap, and I did not realize this until I swapped them out.
. Also, I tried the stock PL EL34s, and it’s not that they were bad, but not my cup of tea. I replaced them with 8 mid-level KT88s (Gold Lion). And with some 12AU7 Brimars, IT IS A DIFFERENT AMP.
IMO, the true value of the PL Integrated is that it provides a quality blueprint for which to add on to and customize for your own speakers with tubes, while all the while having those fat, heavy transistors that can drive down to 2 ohms (eg, hello Maggie’s, hello Dynaudio, etc).
So so in the end, I spent about $4k for the HP Integrated, and another $800 on KT88s and and 2 NOS 12au7s. I would bump up my game to 8 KT120s for increased dynamics, but I will be using a sub for the low end, and this allows me to retain mid range glory of the 88s.
