Where is the tube warmth and magic?

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I strongly agree that unless you specify the source you listened to and other components, its pretty pointless to form a general opinion on a particular brand of tube amp or tube amps in general!
Room treatment setting etc all play a factor. Now if you A/B 'ed it with other amps in the same setting with the same music/source thats one thing.
Prima Luna Dialogue Premium HP owner here, and mine is anything but bright/harsh or solid state like. I am running KT120s as I want the 88 watts per channel output. Sonically it is not bright, and that is with some pretty forward sounding JBL 4312 Monitors. Then again, I am running a Manley Chinook Tube preamp with Mullards rolled in. A Thorens TT running a very revealing/ detailed Lyra Delos cart. If the overall sound was too dry or analytical, I would have sold the amp in two minutes ( I cycle gear FAST that does not give me the sound I am looking for). PLs , tho newer gear, have a pretty great rep (search their reviews). The tube cult tend to turn their nose up at any gear that is not iconic and does not have a place in the tube audiophile legacy. I made the mistake of posting some innocent questions in the Tube forums over at AK and got burnt at the stake more than once...

 

The speakers aren't really designed for tubes.
Tube amps vary - some sound more like SS amps than tube amps and indeed some SS amps sound very valve-like - my old Sugden A48B is a SS amp that sounds more like a good push pull tube amp than many a push pull tube amps.

Don't buy into all the marketing hoopla that Prima Luna puts out. Auto-Bias? Audio Note has been selling amps since the 1970s - All of their tube amps are self biasing and always have been. There is nothing revolutionary or exceptional about the Prima Luna claims. The question I ask is really simple - does it sound good?

The problem with listening to a mix and match system where there are several products from several companies put together for audition is that you don't know which part of the system was dragging it down. Let's say the speakers are awful - well no amp is going to save it - what if in fact it was the CD player or the cables that stunk - the speakers may, if good, simply pass that information on as they should.

One of the worst things this hobby does is continually perpetuate stereo memes on forums - like "I have bright speakers" - then "buy a tube amp to fix it" - no. Total BS. Tube amps have far far far greater variation in sound than do SS amplifiers.

Take some of the bigger and better tube amp makers - they make a bunch of amplifiers with different tube outputs each one yielding different sound. It is very possible to like 2 amps from a company and dislike 2 other amps from the same company using different output tubes.

This is different than say a Bryston - where basically all their amps sound exactly the same - the only difference is power output - they have the same sound at the same volume on the same speaker - BUT when pushed hard into a hard to drive speaker - you may want a higher power version. But even their engineers will tell you - they all sound the same - they all sound like a Bryston - ditto (enter your SS amp choice here). With tube amps - it's just not the case. You may like an EL34 output tube amp and despise what is basically the same amplifier that uses KT88 output tubes. You can listen to three different integrated amps using the EL34 output - all three amps are around the same price and be shocked how different they sound.

I'm not sure warmth is the best thing to be looking for anyway - what I think people are really after is fatigue free presentation that you can enjoy all day even at fairly loud levels without the system sounding thin and lacking body.

IME the best systems are SET based - amplifier is a single ended triode pure class A system. There are various technical reasons for this and confirmed in blind level matched conditions seem to bare this out. I have not heard everything from Prima Luna - but in general it is the SET amps from the tube amp makers making SET and PP that sound the best. Push Pull seems to me to be the cost conscious alternative.

 

"Tube warmth" is an outdated concept for most current production tube amplifiers. They strive to be neutral and accurate. However you can achieve "tube warmth" by swapping out key small signal tubes in the preamp / power amp driver sections. See any number of online NOS tube stores for options based on sound characteristics.
The system you heard may have been bright and harsh for any number of reasons- individually or collectively- including speaker break in (some speakers can take a year to break in and round off), amplifier break-in, speaker placement, room conditions and listening position as well as the sonic characteristics of the stock tubes and system synergy.
If your speakers are well broken in you should have a much smoother presentation.
As a recent tube amplifier "convert" the tube magic for my ears is the spaciousness and sheer size of the sound field. My solid state system sounded compressed, compact and "artificial". The tube amp sounds wide open, clearer and much more natural and literally fills the wall with sound.
You have to separate the tube amp magic into two categories-
Tonality- e.g. warmth, brightness, etc can be achieved by tube changes.
Soundstage / size and shape- where the real magic is. To experience this speaker placement and listening position are critical and need to be dialed in.

 

Yes, Mayeb the amp is not fully "matured" yet... Also, in my experience, Vienna acoustics speakers I have heard were on the bright side....Beautifully finished though...

 

I think tubes can sound different depending on the amp and the speakers matched with it. For instance, I loved EL-34s in my primaluna prologue one with one pair of very colored speakers, but with a different pair of speakers I found the same tubes overly warm and blanketed.

I've long wondered if anyone else thought this way. I got a lot of confused responses when I couldn't find a decent SS amp to pair with an older pair of Viennas. They have tons of clarity and stellar imaging, but are kinda bright and screechy. The heavily sucked out mids seem to accentuate to the ear the more linear frequencies above it, so everything comes out sounding an octave higher than it should. They're warm and bright at the same time. IMHO, they have an initially exciting sound that soon grows tiresome; that said, the new models strive towards linearity a bit more than the older ones that I own, but the same house sound is firmly in place based on the frequency response measurements I've seen. I finally matched mine with a Primaluna Prologue One running EL-34s and they sound pretty good this way. To the OP: What output tubes were in the Primaluna?

 

The audition was at my dealers .
Amp. PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premium HP with EL34 and KT120.
Speakers . vienna acoustics beethoven baby grand
Source 1 . Marantz SACD SA 8004.
Source 2. Clearaudio concept with concept mc cart and nano phono.

THANKS ALL !

 

Good points. Another option is to keep all the front end components neutral and gain a small bit of warmth, if needed, by way of speakers, then fine tune with cords and cables.