PrimaLuna Prologue 1 or 2?

What are your speakers' sensitivity and impedance specs?

Craig:

Points well made, though if I follow your dates correctly I may still be older (damm).

So, I own the Prologue 2 integrated and Prologue 5 power amps. With either unit, I have never found myself obsessing about 3/4 of the stuff that I read reviewers write about. What struck me about both the 2 and the 5 is that the music had very much a 3D quality to it. The music seem suspended in the air, so to speak. I have recently shuffled all my components around and in the system I use the Prologue 5, the monitors are placed inside of a bookcase, on their sides, about 4 feet up in the air. The system sounds fantastic ... clear, clean, and musical with excellent rendering of the recording ... like what else could I want? My room size is about the same as yours, the speakers have a sensitivity of 86 db, and assuming I don't want ear bleed ... it plays plenty loud.

I use the Prima Lunas as follows:

System #1

Prologue 2 integrated amp, Rega Apollo CD player, SONY SCD 555ES SACD player, Acoustic Research 302 speakers.

System #2

Prologue 5 power amp, Musical Fidelity CD PRE 24 CD player/preamp combo, Rega Ara monitors.

For both systems, the interconnects are Signal Cable and the power cords are Naim.

Without knowing how your current equipment set-up sounds, I think that you would be happy with either the Prologue 1 or 2. I think that the 2 gives you a little more, but I don't think that it distracts from the music. Question though, if you suspect that the preamp is the problem, have you considered picking up the Prologue 3 preamp instead?

Regards, Rich

Tvad - the published specs on the Kestrel 2s are pretty skimpy - with no other parameters given it simply says impedance is 8 ohms (it doesn't even say it's nominal) and sensitivity is listed as 89dB (with nothing said about input or distance).

Rich - thanks for the thoughtful comments. I *have* considered just upgrading the preamp alone, but as I was trying to suggest toward the end of my last post (I could have been clearer, but figured I'd gone on long enough as it was), I thought if there was going to be a sonic benefit to introducing tubes into the mix, the best way to be sure of getting that benefit would be to go with tubes for both power and pre. But your question begs this next one - leaving aside issues such as the relative quality differences between my current power amp and preamp, and assuming I'd have the money to replace both with separates (which may or may not be the case), which approach is likely to have the greater effect on the sound of the system - switching out the power amp or the preamp?

I know a *whole* lot of it has to do with the actual equipment being evaluated, but with the nearest opportunity to hear any PrimaLunas in person being a drive of, well, however far it is from Indy to Kansas City, we've got to talk in hypothetical terms for now. Unless I get an unusually strong craving for BBQ in the next few weeks.

Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Provided you don't listen to rock at floor shaking levels, your Kestrels should be happy with low powered tubes. There are many good options for low powered tube integrateds these days...PrimaLuna Prologue 1 or 2, Rogue Cronus and Eastern Electric M520 (M stands for the classic Mullard design on which the M520 is based), among others.

I also understand George Wright has a cool 15w Class A EL34 integrated with USB input coming out soon.

Craig:

Between the power and preamp, I would say the biggest sonic benefit is in switching out the preamp. But then you are getting into a hybrid situation (tube preamp/solid state power amp) and you may or may not want to do that. Supposedly that hybrid combination gives you the best of both worlds ... more analog sounding front end with solid state power for control and volume. I do the reverse (tube power amp/solid state preamp), because it worked out that way and I like the combination quite a bit.

At the time that I purchased my Prologue 2, I had an email exchange with Kevin Deal as to whether to go with the 1 or the 2. The price difference was about $200 or so. Kevin wrote back that the P2 would give me more "oomph in the bass" and "the parts were slightly better." That was as technical as it got, but it helped me make my decision. I was planning to run the P2 with full range speakers that went down to 35hz and figured that the P2 would support those speakers better. I did not know from tube swapping then and that a quartet of KT88's accounted for at least 40% of the price difference.

In the end, I think that you are correct in saying that a tube integrated will give you the most sonic benefit bang for the buck. I would still go with the P2 because it gives me the tube swapping options, which may become valuable to you later down the line. I would also go with Prima Luna, in general, because of the auto biasing and soft start features, which just make ownership so much simpler.

Regards, Rich