PrimaLuna Prologue One Amplifier

Chinese manufacture, the ProLogue One and the merchandise of design that is Dutch certainly feels a cut above your typical Shenzhen tube amp that is cheerful and cheap. It's an all-steel building, well painted in metallic gunmetal grey, and there's a valve cage comprised which is suggested for those with children pets and/or small.

The general degree of finish is very good for a hand-assembled tube amplifier of the sort; there's simply no sense dial you're utilizing the firm's cheapest merchandise in the slightest.

It's simplicity itself to function, with two control knobs on the fascia (volume and input choice), plus a power on I.F.D. Round the back it's quite straightforward, also; there are four pairs of RCA phono inputs, plus 4 and 8 ohm loudspeaker taps (we used the 4 ohm) via WBT-style speaker binding posts.

Inside, the little PrimaLuna sports conventional point-to-point wiring done to a great standard, rather than stuffed circuit boards, along with great-quality ceramic valve sockets. Four EL34A electricity tubes are used, along with two 12AU7 input tubes and two 12AX7.

There is a soft start circuit fitted to prolong tube life, and there is reported to be an adaptive auto-biasing circuit tubes do not need to be fit - useful. A smallish framework-type electricity transformer provides the juice.

Sound quality

Astonishingly, not one of us noticed it was a tube amp; if anything the Rokian sounded more valvey! We enjoyed the strong bass which I thought was "more exuberant, lifelike and dynamic" than most, although we believed it a little lacking in ultimate weight.

I thought it looked to image more just than most other amps here, even when the soundstage wasn't quite as wide as some and I concurred.

Still, we thought it wide enough, and that i noted that it had a "huge hi-fi sound".

It was astonishingly detailed, too, with "fine detail on reverberation tails around piano and voice"; you could actually hear into the recording. I agreed, finding the treble quite clean.

Although on the 4hero track (very familiar to me) I began to believe its a little "lustrous and airbrushed" in a hifi way; it was crisp and clear, but not quite as organic as I'd expected.

Indeed, about the classical track, I found it rather opaque, not pulling me into the music as the best of the rest. A competent performer at the price, all the same.