PrimaLuna EVO 300 Hybrid Tube Power Amplifier
$7,195.00
PrimaLuna’s hybrid design approach uses unique and innovative engineering to tightly connect the tube and the MOSFET section, ensuring they are always working in tandem.
The Hybrid Power Amplifier uses the same tube input gain-stage and solid-state power amp gain-stage as the celebrated Hybrid Integrated, except that the power amp’s solid-state circuit has a gain relay which allows for gain switching between 24 dB or 30 dB, while keeping the tube gain steady.
Too often, hybrid amps turn out to be less than the sum of their parts – a mismatch, both technically and sonically. It’s essential to choose solid-state components that behave similarly to a tube. PrimaLuna EVO 300 Hybrid Power Amplifier’s MOSFETs, used in the power stages, share similar characteristics with tubes.
Description
PrimaLuna’s hybrid design approach uses unique and innovative engineering to tightly connect the tube and the MOSFET section, ensuring they are always working in tandem.
The Hybrid Power Amplifier uses the same tube input gain-stage and solid-state power amp gain-stage as the celebrated Hybrid Integrated, except that the power amp’s solid-state circuit has a gain relay which allows for gain switching between 24 dB or 30 dB, while keeping the tube gain steady.
Too often, hybrid amps turn out to be less than the sum of their parts – a mismatch, both technically and sonically. It’s essential to choose solid-state components that behave similarly to a tube. PrimaLuna EVO 300 Hybrid Power Amplifier’s MOSFETs, used in the power stages, share similar characteristics with tubes.
Floyd Design’s Jan de Groot has created amps with MOSFETs for 26 years. These MOSFETs are specifically designed to pair with our most successful PrimaLuna pre-stages, matched for the best sound quality possible and mounted it in one chassis; Et voilà!
The PrimaLuna EVO 300 Hybrid Power Amplifier is unlike any other hybrid amplifier on the market. You can SEE that, and you can HEAR that. We wanted the BEST HYBRID possible, and we knew it would become a more expensive unit. After the final fine-tuning and listening tests, we can easily accept and justify that!
Tube in the Front, Solid State in the Back
The input stages of the EVO 300 Hybrid use two 12AU7 tubes in the gain stages, and four 12AU7 driver tubes. The doubled driver tubes ensure a lower impedance on the output stages, allowing for large dynamics, a huge soundstage, and lots of beautiful harmonics and texture.
The solid-state output stages use cascading JFETs from Linear Systems and each channel boasts two complementary pairs of MOSFETs from Exicon. These MOSFETS are exotic and custom-designed and built and are not available to anyone else! The setup is calibrated to offer the lowest impedance, and the 100 W into 8 ohms (160 W into 4 ohms) power sounds massive, allowing this amp to preserve tube glory while offering the excellent grip, low-bass power and control that MOSFETs are known for.
The most crucial capacitors, the ones in the signal path, are extremely expensive tin-foil caps that are made in Europe. Elsewhere, even the caps outside the signal path are the top-quality models that modders use to upgrade their regular amps!
The Power Supply is Everything
The power supply in the EVO 300 Hybrid is extremely complex. Increasingly, manufacturers are realizing that there’s more to power supplies than was ever thought before and that their design has a huge effect on the sound of the amp. For example, a power supply inductor can work as a second-order harmonic filter, so every part has to be carefully considered for its sonic qualities.
The amplifier uses a custom-wound set of potted toroidal transformers for true dual mono. It also has a pair of PrimaLuna’s custom-designed AC offset killers that the company is world-famous for. There is extensive shielding in various parts of the amplifier to block any noise from the main power supply getting into the delicate preamp section.
Looking into the chassis of the EVO 300 Hybrid, you will see a red glow of LEDs, reminiscent of the glow of tube filaments. This isn’t just a cosmetic touch. Apart from emitting light, LEDs can function as low-noise, extremely quick diodes in electronic circuits. Designers have found that red LEDs in particular offer the best performance when used this way.
The PrimaLuna Hybrid’s power supply circuits use high-performance LEDs at critical points, offering various circuits in its extremely sophisticated power supply, their own supply of low-noise electrical power.
| Inputs | 1x Stereo RCA, 1x Stereo XLR |
| Outputs | Speaker Tap |
| Freq. Response | 10 Hz – 80 kHz +/- 3 dB |
| Standard Tube Complement | 6 x 12AU7 |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 15.9″ x 15.2″ x 8.1″ (405 x 385 x 205 mm) |
| Weight | 68.3 lb. |
| Stereo | Mono | |
| Output Power (8 Ω/4 Ω): | 100 W/150 W | 220 W/300 W |
| THD (@ 8 Ω) | 0.2% 100 W | 0.2% 245 W |
| S/N Ratio (A-Weighted) | -105 dB | -105 dB |
| Input Sensitivity (RCA / XLR) | 805 mV/901 mV | 1,330 mV/1,340 mV |
| Input Impedance (RCA / XLR) | 32 kOhm/49 kOhm | 18 kOhm/50 kOhm |
| Power Consumption | 104 W (no signal in); 645 W@4R | 104 W (no signal in); 645 W@4R |
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