PrimaLuna Dialogue Seven Tube Amp Review

[JakeK]

Not sure why 3 people voted it 'Great'!

 

[fpitas]

Not sure why 3 people voted it 'Great'!

The engineer, the CEO and the salesman for PrimaLuna.

 

[Orion76]

So two of these plus the matching pre-amp comes in at $8,093.

No thanks.

 

[DearSX]

So two of these plus the matching pre-amp comes in at $8,093.

No thanks.

That is like 180lbs of audiophile fidelity! One thing we don't mention is how the wait if components help it be better than lighter components.

 

[Multicore]

Nicely designed distortion generating machine.

Not enough control. Line 6 Helix is a good distortion generating machine.

 

[Multicore]

At some stage, all audiophiles/HiFi nuts decide they want 'to give tubes a go', just for fun.

This is good to know. It means I'm neither an audiophile nor a HiFi nut.

 

[Purité Audio]

At some stage, all audiophiles/HiFi nuts decide they want 'to give tubes a go', just for fun. My time with tubes was short lived in the early-mid 2000s. No desire to return to them, even though I've had some nice tube gear across my lab bench.

Yup although I really wish I hadn’t ‘inner life of valves’ what a load of codswallop.
Keith

 

[musicforcities]

Now, to the cost of purchase, add in the power consumption of this turd, even at idle…and perhaps the added burden to one’s ac system.

This thing is an assault on the environment and audio engineering.

Unless…you swap the stock tubes with $3500 cryogenically treated Russian made tubes from the first half of the Stalin regime…then not only will they solve the poor measurements, it will also use less power per watt than a class D. Enjoy it while it lasts cause those old tubes have an average lifespan of 8-20 hours.

 

[Rottmannash]

@amirm unless you have coined a new phrase you misspelled distortion in this graph. Perhaps a new term needs to be invented to characterize the level of distortion this thing produces.

 

[fpitas]

This is good to know. It means I'm neither an audiophile nor a HiFi nut.

I had a box of tubes when I was a kid. As soon as transistors were even vaguely usable, I threw the tubes in a lake.

 

[musicforcities]

Sure. Lots of reasons.

For start, musicians still use tube amps and preamps and it helps them create art. Some swear by tubes, even though D class amps with DSP might do the same, but if they knew, their art might suffer, so best left alone.

The other reason is antics and style. Who enjoys that kind of thing, why not... If I had the time and money, I would make a secondary system consisting of tube amps, analog tuner from 60s or 70s and a turntable... whatever..

I am sure there are others....

Tube amps for instruments like electric guitars are used because they create distortion and add tonal color. Not because they are transparent. For that use they are excellent. And they don’t need that much power. Though solid state emulation is now mostly indistinguishable…though sometimes more complicated/expensive than a cheap tube amp.

But I’ll leave the sonic sculpting to the creators of the music that I want reproduced.

If one wants to scratch the tube itch, I advise just picking up a cheap sub $100 tube buffer or preamp by fosi or similar and stick it in your audio chain. All the tube distortion you could ever want with little tubes that last a long time and trying out different tubes for different distortion effects is easy and can be reasonably affordable. Hey schiit even makes a tube preamp for which you can buy their “solid state preamp tubes” (a transistor based preamp power stage housed in a tube shaped package and pin out). So you can choose tube distortion or solid state drive depending on your mood. lol.

I will admit I do love my old carver designed sunfire tube preamp. Sounds great and imparts a nice tube effect. I don’t use it that much but it’s nice sometimes. The tone controls are excellent, they switch in different cut and boost filters created by discrete components for each channel.

Plus it has a typically weird bob carver option of running a normal line level input into an inverse RIAA filter (used for vinyl) and then the very nice tube phono stage (3 tubes for MM, 6 for MC). If you Want your CDs or streaming music to sound like a vinyl record with tube preamp for some reason, it’s perfect….i tried it once.

Only problem is that the preamp tubes cook the 47uf 350v electrolytic capacitors on the phono board….i can warm up tortillas in the top cover of the preamp. Not exactly eco friendly.

 

[musicforcities]

I had a box of tubes when I was a kid. As soon as transistors were even vaguely usable, I threw the tubes in a lake.

Bad move…you could have bought a nice purify/ncore amp on the profits from selling those tubes to an audiophile.

 

[fpitas]

Bad move…you could have bought a nice purify/ncore amp on the profits from selling those tubes to an audiophile.

Not in 1971, I couldn't. I guess if I hung onto them. There was a real 6SN7 in there!

 

[musicforcities]

totally agree..unless this has a batch of fresh tubes... then its an invalid test.

Peter

that is too much to ask of Amir. And is he supposed to measure the new tubes in isolation as well to ensure they are good and matched samples. There can be a relatively wide margin of error in tubes, vintage or newly made.

And what about transport? Big power tubes don’t take kindly to being shipped all over the place. Vibrations, drops and such can cause degradation even if the tube is intact and well packed.

My advice for Amir is just to not bother reviewing tube amps at all. Maybe tube preamps. But power amps. Not worth the trouble.

 

[Andysu]

This is a review, listening test and detailed measurements of the PriamLUna Dialogue Seven tube monoblock power amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member and cost $2,747 when it came out in late 2000s.
View attachment 309754

looks like a bread toaster oven

 

[MrOtto]

Stereophile:
"When I measure amplifiers like PrimaLuna's DiaLogue Seven, my eyebrows always rise because the things they do wrong must be balanced against the possible sonic befits of the other things they do."

"The DiaLogue Seven's measured performance in triode mode was notably worse than in ultralinear mode, yet Art Dudley ultimately preferred triode mode"

 

[musicforcities]

And such a Dynaco ST-70 I can definitely see someone who knows electronics tinkering with.
Something that Amir also noted when he tested it:

I love the simplicity of tube amps like this. There is just so little to them. If I were less busy, I wouldn't mind playing with one to get it to optimal performance.

Review and Measurements of Dynaco ST 70

This is a review and detailed measurements of the vintage Dynakit Dynaco Stereo 70. It is on kind loan from a member who bought it used online and repaired it. Previous owner hand upgraded it but could not get it working. Given that it is 60 years old, one can forgive the rust and dust...

audiosciencereview.com

With SINAD around 60 dB for a Dynaco ST-70 vs a solid state with SINAD around 90 dB, how can you hear the difference with a pair of speakers that have, for example, 40 dB distortion? The amp's distortion is then drowned out, or masked by the speakers' distortion, right? Maybe if we are more sensitive to higher order amp distortion than speaker distortion and can thus hear a difference between the amplifier and speaker mentioned in my example?
Given that both amplifiers have straight FR (or small but inaudible FR deviations), so you can discount that factor, that is.

I be don’t

Stereophile:
"When I measure amplifiers like PrimaLuna's DiaLogue Seven, my eyebrows always rise because the things they do wrong must be balanced against the possible sonic befits of the other things they do."

"The DiaLogue Seven's measured performance in triode mode was notably worse than in ultralinear mode, yet Art Dudley ultimately preferred triode mode"

sounds sort of like the faulty reasoning of an abuse victim….

 

[craigenputtock]

A poem for your review:

Oh dear, oh dear,
Our revered Amir..
You have made new enemies
With PrimaLuna dealer everywhere

 

[Ken1951]

A poem for your review:

Oh dear, oh dear,
Our revered Amir..
You have made new enemies
With PrimaLuna dealer everywhere

I doubt if many of them care about ASR. Bad reviews here are badges of honor for some.

 

[VQR]

Interesting to see that myth about Tube amps improving performance after half an hour or more seems to be true.
Thanks for the review.

BTW, I had Audio Research VS55 tube amp for a while and I really liked the sound of the mids and highs. Silky and smooth. Or so I thought I heard it like that. But I remember that bass was awful. Muddy and flabby... I hated the bass response. It's surprising to hear that same impression from Amir about the bass... Wonder if it can be confirmed with blind testing.
Also, if this poor bass response is true, can it be measured somehow?

I've wondered for awhile if the 'warm' sound some claim from tubes is caused by PSU noise and ground hum. Many of the tube products tested here have a problem with 60 Hz spikes and other noise at low frequencies. Hum and noise tend to be intended in a lot of these 'audiophile' electronics.