Wes Phillips & Jon Iverson

An inside look at PrimaLuna's adaptive auto-bias. Sometimes simpler is quite complex.

The three phase power supply is pure Ayre. There are three amplifiers, one for each phase. "Essentially, they are mini-MXRs," said Silberman. They are 120 degrees out of phase with one another, and we need to tune each one with a stethoscope to achieve absolute pitch stability. The result?

"Here's something a little different for us," CJ's Lew Johnson continued his tour. "The $10,000 TEA1 triode equalization amplifier embodies our current understanding of the state-of-the-art in phono stage design. It's a zero loop feedback design with two tube gain stages and a passive equalization network. We put a high-current buffer stage isolates the unit from cable and other loading elements."

Music Hall's new $999 Trio CD receiver puts a CD player, tuner, and integrated amp together. What makes it different? Tubes, for one thing—you get 50Wpc of tubey goodness. Just add speakers and cook!