EVO 300 Hybrid Poweramp
$7,195 Stereo / $14,390 Monoblock Pair
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!
Dare to Compare
Compare PrimaLuna construction to any other brand, at any price. You'll be amazed.
REMOTE CONTROLLED TRIODE/ULTRA-LINEAR SWITCHING
Do you have some classic rock albums you used to love so much that have now ended up left on the shelf, un-played for years? How about jazz or classical recordings from the 60’s? Every audiophile has albums that they used to play, but stopped because they are harsh, brittle, or bright. There is a solution.
Triode and Single Ended Triode (SET) amps are popular for their warmer, fuller, and easy to settle into sound. But triode amps have limitations! Ultra-linear has more extension on the top and bottom, not to mention greater power. They have greater “pop” with a bigger difference between light and dark, and loud and soft. Having triode only is VERY limiting.
The best option is to have both triode and ultra-linear. PrimaLuna engineers in Holland designed an ingenious circuit that lets you change from triode to ultra-linear with a push of a button on the supplied remote control. No need to get up and stop the music. Make an instant comparison while you listen and choose what you like best for that song or album.
AC OFFSET KILLER - A PRIMALUNA EXCLUSIVE
AC Offset Killer is about goose bumps. The ones you get when music comes out of a background so quiet, you may say to yourself “Just how is this possible?” PrimaLuna custom-winds our own massive toroidal power transformers that are low in hum and EMI. But we wanted more. Our engineers designed the AC Offset Killer to lower transformer noise to a place no other manufacturer dreams of going, regardless of how bad your electricity is. The result? Sense of space. Texture. The resonance of an acoustic guitar or violin string that seems to trail on forever. The AC Offset Killer will amaze you.
Stereo or Monoblock operation
It's as simple as flipping a switch, and PrimaLuna EVO Poweramps instantly switch from stereo to monoblock operation! Buy one, and as your budget grows your system can grow too. The benefit of monoblock operation is the amp now has dual output transformers for the best coupling with your speakers, and the addition of a 2-ohm speaker tap added to the 4 and 8-ohm taps. While all PrimaLuna amps are made for ribbons like Magnaplanars and electrostatics like Martin-Logan, you haven't heard anything until you have heard a PrimaLuna monoblock!
CUSTOM TOROIDAL POWER TRANSFORMERS
Power transformers generate two types of noise, magnetic and acoustic. That's why toroidal power transformers are used in the very best audio products. Compared to standard transformers, toroids radiate about 1/10 the magnetic field that pollutes music and obscures detail. Additionally, the absence of an air gap typically means toroids have an 8:1 reduction of acoustic noise. As transformers are the most expensive components in any audio product, manufacturers will even house cheaper C-core and EI-core transformers in an outboard power supply box with an umbilical cable rather than upgrade to an expensive toroid. The increased cost is significant, but PrimaLuna doesn’t cut corners. All PrimaLuna products use massive, potted toroidal transformers. PrimaLuna transformers are enclosed in a metal housing and then potted in a non-microphonic resin to further reduce noise and to protect the windings from moisture and deterioration forever.
POINT TO POINT WIRING W/ Swiss Made Wire
You spend a lot of money on interconnects. So why have the signal go right from the RCA jacks or speaker terminals into circuit boards with copper traces so thin you can hardly see them? What’s high-end about that?
PrimaLuna employs Point to Point Wiring on all products. The entire signal path, including resistors and capacitors, is painstakingly hand wired with heavy-gauge cable by craftsman.
EVO 300 and EVO 400 models use Swiss-made, silver-plated, oxygen-free continuous crystal (OCC) copper with a Teflon dielectric in the critical signal path for superior signal speed and increased clarity.
TAKMAN RESISTORS
If you bought a lesser amplifier, you would pay hundreds to make this upgrade. Easy to identify through their pink color, these premium resistors from Japan are popular with those who rebuild and upgrade their gear. "Modders" love TAKMAN for their low noise, linearity, and musicality.
EVO 300 Hybrid Power Specifications
| Inputs | 1x Stereo RCA, 1x Stereo XLR |
| Outputs | Speaker Tap |
| Freq. Response | 10 Hz – 80 kHz +/- 3 dB |
| Standard Tube Complement | 6x 12AU7 |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 15.9" x 15.2" x 8.1" (405mm x 385mm x 205mm) |
| Weight | 68.3 lb |
| Stereo | Mono | |
| Output Power (8Ω / 4Ω): |
220W / 300W | 100W / 150W |
| THD (@ 8Ω) |
0.2% 100W | 0.2% 245W |
| S/N Ratio (A-Weighted) |
-105dB | -103dB |
| Input Sensitivity (RCA / XLR) |
805 mV / 901mV | 1330 mV / 1340 mV |
| Input Inpedience (RCA / XLR) |
32 kOhm / 4.9kOhm | 18 kOhm / 50 kOhm |
| Power Consumption | 104 Watts (no signal in); 645W@4R | 104 Watts (no signal in); 645W@4R |
