VINTAGE HI-FI Primare 928 System Sometimes you rediscover a classic once so far ahead of the curve that it cuts a dash to this day – and we’re not just talking style but sound. Is this ’80s amp one of them? Review: David Price Lab: Paul Miller he 1980s was a decade of great change. Consumer products that had been the stuff of science fiction just 15 Tyears earlier – digital watches, home computers, LaserDisc players – were respectability – so the preamplifier has a neatly laid out interior, with star earthing, ABOVE: Available in both satin black and silver now increasingly commonplace. The highly configurable phono inputs. Remove parallel-decoupled amplification stages and grey, the iconic appearance of the 928 System era had a dynamic, hedonistic feel, a panel and you’ll see DIP switches with ten ceramic capacitors. Hermetically sealed components has earned them a place in the and it was now acceptable not just to settings for MC sensitivity and 12 for MC relays are featured and the contacts are Copenhagen Museum of Industrial Art have wealth but to show it. impedance. Another panel offers phono gold plated for longevity. When it came to hi-fi, there was an channel balance settings in 0.5dB steps The matching Series 928 mono power power in, with a master power switch and explosion in the number of high-end from 0dB to 2dB, and there are DIPs for amplifiers were seriously powerful for their fuse holder. Protection is provided against products, many of which were styled in MM sensitivity too – although capacitance time, with a claimed output of 100W/8ohm overheating, DC offset, short circuits, a manner sufficiently garish to impress is set at a nominal 100pF and 200W/4ohm – with RF interference and low voltage supply, your friends and family. Indeed, this for both types of cartridge. a maximum of 40A of the red LED indicating a fault condition. brashness was a badge of authenticity The bank of ten toggle ‘This is one of current [see PM’s Lab There’s even a variable speed cooling fan – ‘real hi-fi’ stood in opposition to the switches on the preamp Report, p127]. The fitted inside, though Primare’s literature likes of the achingly beautiful modernist performs various functions, the finest solid- company has always been at the time stated this was unlikely to creations of Bang & Olufsen’s industrial though while having a state amplifiers an advocate of short cut-in during normal use. Vital statistics design guru Jacob Jensen. ABOVE: Primare was founded in Denmark (it is now based in Sweden) but the Danes’ flair for style is delightfully ‘clickety’ signal paths, so things for both preamplifier and monoblocks are Fellow Dane Bo Christensen thought reflected in both the 928’s industrial design and this brochure for the pre/power, launched in 1986 action, they’re a tad fiddly I have heard’ are duly laid out with a 200x200x320mm (whd), and they weigh he could do better than both approaches to use. Inputs include minimum of wiring inside. 9kg and 17kg, respectively. however, and set about creating something Primare’s current marketing manager today it is visually arresting in its sultry ’80s MC and MM phono, CD, tuner and tape Primare says the amp is a fully balanced, so exquisite-looking that it put even B&O Terry Medalen explains that the company’s black, while a version offered in a satin grey – although the latter doesn’t provide zero- (overall) negative feedback Class AB DAVID LISTENS to shame. As it happened, it was also one design language was based around the finish was no less striking. off-tape monitoring. There’s a low filter for design, with high-quality components used Let’s cut to the chase: this is one of the of the finest-sounding pre/power amplifier concept of lagom – a Swedish term for vinyl rumble, switchable phase inversion including Sanken power transistors. finest solid-state amps I have heard. It has combinations of its era. ‘just the right amount’. The idea was to MEET THE PANEL and mute, while the full-size headphone Round the back there’s a choice of RCA an evenness and openness that allows the strike the right balance between ease-of- The package comprises the Series 928 socket reminds us that people used cans or balanced inputs, with switchable input listener to melt into the music. Whichever MUSIC OBSESSED use and style, with no useless fripperies preamplifier and two matching Series 928 in the ’80, too. Under the lid, meanwhile, sensitivity, two very chunky gold-plated recording you care to play, the system Primare Systems of Denmark – although to detract from the user experience. This monoblock power amplifiers. All together, electronics designer Bent Nielsen delivered loudspeaker binding posts and an IEC lays it out on a plate with virtually nothing now based in Sweden and trading as concept ‘informed our very they are surprisingly compact and seem added or taken away. Primare Systems AB – was launched in deliberate efforts to smaller still, due to the clever packaging. It also boasts copious 1984. It boasted a team of music-obsessed tread the difficult Indeed, compared to high-end American amounts of power, engineers that included path between components of the period, they’re an which it delivers in a Bent Nielsen, who is now so-called lifestyle essay in minimalism. The chunky subtle, yet effortless, the company’s electronics and purist audio,’ gold-plated volume control knob manner, there being chief. The idea was to fuse he says. The 928 dominates, and feels positive to no sense of the amp superlative sound with System was the use. After the first batch of throwing its weight exquisite ergonomics and a embodiment of amplifiers, a wired remote around in an effort to style unmistakably different this aim. Even control was bundled, which impress the listener. to that of other high-end by the standards of the day Rather, it is the music hi-fi. The 928 System was the was an audacious luxury. issuing forth from result, launched in 1986 with At the time of its launch, the loudspeakers a price tag of £8750. the only serious music source that impresses. The concept was to make around was a turntable – CD something that would go hadn’t yet achieved audiophile LEFT: We featured beyond the typical Japanese the ‘928 System’ on 12-month product cycle. The LEFT: Inside the 928 preamp (no the cover of our Mar design brief also included making SMDs in 1986) the volume control is ’88 issue. Ken Kessler ‘living products’ that didn’t go out revealed as a precision 24-step attenuator. described the sound of fashion and could be upgraded in Note the separate plug-in cards for the MM and as ‘silky smooth, due course, as technologies changed. MC phono stages, and screened PSU alongside almost tube-like...’ Reprinted from Hi-Fi News www.hifinews.co.uk | Reprinted from Hi-Fi News HFN Feb Vintage Review – Primare 928 Reprint.indd 122-123 27/02/2019 10:40 The headline news here is the amp’s cohesion. For example, 808 State’s ‘Joyrider’ [from Thermo Kings; ZTT WPCR- 942] is an early ’90s techno track that’s quite a challenging listen. There’s plenty of heavily compressed, dense synthesiser work and it’s pretty relentless, especially at higher volumes. The track can sound piercingly bright via some high-end amps – enough to have you reaching for the paracetamol – yet others can render it soft and rather euphonic sounding. The Primare package treads an artful balance between the two presentations. Rather than sugaring the musical pill, it sounds translucent. The music doesn’t appear mediated or manipulated by the electronics but propagates around the room with an ease that seems uncanny. The 928 System does that old ‘magicking away the speakers trick’ and then some, there being little feeling of any demarcation between the listener and the recording. not a match for seriously expensive and/or ABOVE: A look inside the fully symmetrical 928 tweaky tube stuff in this respect, it was not monoblock reveals a very close-coupled bipolar VICE CAPTAIN far off. Indeed, the benefit of its vice-like (Sanken)-based power amp supported by a Soundstaging is also superb – both in its control of the low frequencies more than substantial PSU. The toroidal mains transformer breadth and depth. With a simple, late ’60s made up for the teensiest lack of liquidity is enclosed in the front of the chassis Blue Note recording such as Grant Green’s in the midband. Icon’s ‘Desire (Icarus Mix)’ ‘Hurt So Bad’ [from Carryin’ [from Various Artists, grace. It didn’t come across as over- On; Blue Note TOCJ-8667], Behind The Eye Volume exuberant, yet nor was it too measured. this proved remarkable. ‘It keeps you II; Eye Q Records 4509- Indeed it reminded me why I was so The album was laid down glued to your 99092-2] is a classic enamoured with this song when it first with rudimentary analogue trance track that is all came out, all those years ago. Transients recording techniques, sofa listening, about the groove. were dizzyingly fast, letting me hear the and properly reproduced The 928 System made subtle interplay between the looped hi-hats can sound spectacularly for hours on end’ a masterful job of it, with and snare drums, while the bass synthesiser wide and immersive. So it tremendous grip from had true grunt without a hint of flabbiness. proved, with a ‘walkaround’ soundstage bottom to top. It didn’t seem in the least if there ever was one.