"Jim, yes, I still listen to FM classical music in the Bay area. Why?"
"I had kind of a crazy idea. McIntosh has lots of good new stuff coming out now, but I want you to review the MAC7200 receiver, which isn't new. I like FM radio. I'd listen to FM a lot more, except that I'm stuck on the first floor in a neighborhood full of very tall brick and stone buildings. I am literally a 3-minute walk from Columbia, but I cannot receive…
Setup involved selecting the optimal amplifier-output speaker terminals—2, 4, or 8 ohms—for my Quad ESL-989 electrostatic speakers. Ron suggested I use the speaker manufacturer's nominal impedance rating or JA's measurement and then use a lower impedance speaker tap.…
Description: Two-channel solid-state receiver with line, phono, FM and AM tuners, tone controls, headphone output, class-AB output stage, D/A module. Analog inputs: 1 balanced (XLR); 5 single-ended (RCA); 1 single-ended (RCA) power amplifier; MM phono; MC phono; 1 passthrough; 75-ohm external FM Antenna; RJ45 for RAA2 AM remote antenna. Outputs: 1 pair single-ended preamplifier (RCA), 1 pair single-ended Rec, 4 pairs five-way speaker binding posts (ground, 2, 4, 8 ohms). Phono sensitivity (for rated output): line level, 250mV; MM, 2.5mV; MC, 0.25mV. Input…
When I wrote that, 2021 wasn't quite over, so year-end financials weren't available. They're available now.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America, in 2021 recorded-music revenue reached $15 billion, an astonishing $2.9 billion—19.3%—increase over 2020. That increase is probably exaggerated by COVID-suppressed 2020 revenue—physical media…
Since then, the Dutch have claimed other engineering and technology triumphs that aren't quite so dicey. Take the world of audio. Dutch innovators at Philips gave us the audio cassette (for which I beg your forgiveness). Two decades later, they and their Sony colleagues upped the game with the Compact Disc—and…
Van den Dungen told me that he hates to compromise on quality. These days, he sources tinfoil capacitors from Switzerland, made to his specs, and has them sent to the Netherlands. "Here, we sample for quality, and then they go on transport to China. In China," where PrimaLuna's products are built, "each capacitor is tested, which in fact we do with all our parts: resistors, caps, transistors,…
Description: Tubed, remote-controlled, stereo integrated amplifier. Tube complement: six 12AU7s, eight EL34s. Inputs: 5 pairs RCA, 1 pair home-theater bypass. Outputs: 4 ohm and 8 ohm. Stereo sub outs. ¼" headphone jack. Rated output power: With stock EL34s, 70Wpc (18.4dBW into 8 ohms) Ultralinear, 38Wpc (15.8dBW) Triode; with KT88s, 72Wpc (18.6dBW) Ultralinear, 40Wpc (16dBW) Triode; with KT120s, 85Wpc (19.3dBW) Ultralinear, 45Wpc (16.5dBW) Triode; with KT150s, 88Wpc (19.45dBW) Ultralinear, 50Wpc (17dBW) Triode. Frequency response: 9Hz–50kHz ±1dB; 8Hz–68kHz ±3dB…
Digital sources: 16" MacBook Pro M1 Max running Roon 1.8. Roon ROCK (Lenovo ThinkCentre). Bluesound Node 2i streamer. Naim Uniti Atom, controlled through iPad Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. PureAudio Lotus DAC5, Benchmark DAC3 B, RME ADI-2 DAC FS, Auralic Vega, Musical Fidelity V90.
Preamplifiers: Benchmark HPA4, Naim Uniti Atom, Apt Holman (overhauled and returned to factory specs 2020).
Power amplifiers: Krell FPB 200c (recapped 2020), PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premium HP, Schiit Ragnarok, McIntosh HPA-100.
Loudspeakers: Tekton Moab, MartinLogan Odyssey…
The PrimaLuna EVO 400 arrived without the eight EL34 output tubes installed, just the six 12AU7 small-signal tubes. Neither the EL34s nor the sockets are numbered, so I assumed that PrimaLuna's Adaptive Auto Bias system would ensure that the tubes were optimally biased after I installed them. (As recommended for EL34s in the manual, I made sure that the bias switch on the right side of the chassis was set to Low.) None of the four red LEDs for each channel's tube condition illuminated during the testing, which meant that PrimaLuna's BTI circuit didn't detect a bad…