Primaluna Prologue 8 Tube CD Player (Display Unit)

by **Dicky Ng** Sun Apr 10, 2016 12:34 pm

There's a retro, Heathkit vibe to the curiously capitalized PrimaLuna ProLogue Eight CD player: a shelf of glowing tubes and a chunky transformer case perched atop a plain black chassis. But on closer inspection, it seems there's much more going on here. The chassis is made of heavy-gauge steel, with (according to the manual) a "five-coat, high-gloss, automotive finish," each coating hand-rubbed and -polished. The tube sockets are ceramic, the output jacks gold-plated. Inside, separate toroidal transformers power each channel. Custom-designed isolation transformers separate the analog and digital devices, to reduce noise. The power supply incorporates 11 separate regulation circuits. The output stage is dual-mono with zero feedback. Audio-handling chips include a Burr-Brown SRC4192 that upsamples "Red Book" data to 24-bit/192kHz, and one 24-bit Burr-Brown PCM1792 DAC per channel. Only the tiny silver control buttons (on the otherwise hefty faceplate of machined aluminum) betray a whiff of chintz.

Primaluna Prologue 8 Tube CD Player (Display Unit) Gen_pl10

Primaluna Prologue 8 Tube CD Player (Display Unit) Gen_pl10

In the early days of CD, a few tube-powered models came on the market; the idea was that the dimensionality and warmth of tubes would drape a cuddly blanket over digital's flat harshness. Digital has come a long way since then, and in any case the tubes in the ProLogue Eight aren't about smoothing over; they are, or purport to be, about greater accuracy. Not only is the Eight powered by a pair each of 12AX7, 12AU7, and 5AR4 tubes; its internal clocking device is a mini-triode tube instead of the solid-state oscillator found in most CD players. The claim is that a tube clock introduces less noise and jitter into the CD drive and the DAC chip, resulting in superior detail, dynamics, and musicality. I have no idea whether there's any technical basis for this claim.

Condition : 8/10

Asking : (~~RM 9850~~) RM 7850

Contact : Dicky Ng 012.330 8893

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