Another interesting YT channel is Audio Excellence, a Canadian retailer and they review and compare brands like Macintosh, Cayin Hegel etc and there’s one episode where they compare Primaluna to Cayin. It would seem that Cayin manufacture Primaluna under a OEM deal which would explain the similarity of the back panels.
I personally think that as good as they are, Primaluna are pricey Cayins. Used, they are better value.
Yes, the AE guys are really good. Was just browsing the Cayin Jazz 90 unboxing video. Looks really nice.
Wasn’t able to find anything on Cayin vs Primaluna on the channel (although I wasn’t looking too hard.) If you have some keywords to search, would be helpful - I’d like to watch it.
It was in an older episode about the Cayin 100 and they discussed the option of Pimaluna.In Canada Cayin have a distributer and they are stockists, they were discussing the options such as Primaluna which they seemed to think was a pricey and less attractive proposition.
Fwiw I’ve Currently five tube amps all of which I’ve owned from between three to ten years. The oldest is still on the original tubes which have probably eight thousand hours on them. The last time I tested the valves they were still showing plenty of life (I have a tester).
I started using tube amps about twenty years ago and went down the rabbit hole chasing grail nos tubes. The last few years I’ve brought modern manufactured ones mainly as have been not wanting to put lots of hours on my small collection of sought after nos tubes. Now I purchased many of these 15-20 years ago and they were expensive then but now the costs of some popular no’s tubes make no sense other than as collectables and being rare. Modern tubes are often excellent to my mind if starting out chasing old nos tubes is a fools game the modern offerings are really good for a fraction of the price and significantly less risk that goes with buying 60-70-80 year old tubes.
Thanks - the search is on!
So I’ve looked and can’t seem to find a review of the 100. Was doing some other browsing and came across a Thomas Tan video where he was reviewing the CS55. Made some offhanded mention of the Primaluna 100 and Willsenton sounding more like solid state amps, but that was about it. If anyone has an idea where there’s a comparison video of those three, pls let me know as I can’t seem to find it.
What tube amps does your dealer stock? I’d start there.
My normal dealer doesn’t stock any of the three - but there is a Cayin dealer near me so that’s most likely where I’ll start.
And those make sense as a number of them are both EL34 and KT88 compatible.
I had two Chinese-built valve amps until recently. They are great fun, look amazing and sound fabulous. If I were going back to valves I’d go with Primaluna, probably with EL34 power valves (the KT120s and KT150s are only made by Tung Sol in Russia and they are expensive now and might be hard to track down). EL34s are readily available. Primalunas also use ECC82 and ECC83 valves which are readily available new, and are still manufactured in Europe.
Avoid holding huge stocks of spare valves because they really don’t need replacing as often as some fear. I used mine frequently and worked them hard but never needed to replace any. Think of a good few years before changing power valves. Even longer for the driver valves.