31 Mar 2020Alan Sircom Lets be brutally honest about high-end audio; sometimes its a bit full of itself. The combination of ever-soaring prices and elaborate and often exaggerated claims can sometimes make even the most enthusiastic supporter of high-end audio shout Stop The Insanity!. Fortunately, there are a few brands that seem to share the desire to create products that perform well without recourse to making outlandish claims or creating eye-watering price tags. PrimaLuna is one such brand. However, as a consequence to this BS-free approach to product design and manufacture, the products didnt change that often. The ProLogue and DiaLogue models from the brand were mainstays of affordable valve-based high-end audio for some time, and the company didnt run through endless cycles of hyped-up micro-changes in product design. This isnt just if it aint broke, dont fix it, but a more honest approach that admitted at first principles that there are only a finite number of ways of making an amplifier circuit, and few people are legitimately reinventing the wheel every few years; more like, tinkering with a circuit design thats old enough to draw a pension. So, when PrimaLuna announced a whole new range replacing the ProLogue and DiaLogue, interest was piqued. Was the company bowing to pressure and simply changing a couple of component values and proclaiming it the Second Coming of the Tube Amp, or will the Evolution range really live up to the name? The range launched recently with four series, each comprising integrated amp, line preamp, and stereo power amp that turns mono literally at the flick of a switch. These are, respectively, the Evo 100, 200, 300, and 400 series. There is also a single DAC in the range; the Evo 100. This sports a clever tube clock circuit, but thats another story!Read the full review here.
