Amp Recommendation for New Vinyl Setup

[AudioDoctor]

1 hour ago, bluesman said:

Wow! They're a bit pricey, e.g. no 12AX7 is worth more than $100 to me!

 

I have never had a bad tube from them either. They also test each one and match them all for no extra cost.

[bluesman]

9 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

I have never had a bad tube from them either. They also test each one and match them all for no extra cost.

The way Prima Luna auto-biases is essentially real time matching, so paying for matched tubes is wasted money. There’s no sonic benefit.

 

And at those prices, a complete retube of my amp with their “best” would cost about $1k.  It’s under $300 using tubes from Upscale Audio (the US importer of PL), with no SQ advantage to either. Remember that I have some old tubes that are now considered premium (and sell for big bucks), even though they weren’t back in the day. I use the original PL tubes because they sound as good to me.