The ProLogue One AABB Upgrade
Neville Roberts
Having read the review of the splendid £800 ProLogue One by Dominic Todd in the August
2004 issue of Hi-Fi World magazine, I was delighted to hear from Herman van den Dungen
that he had just produced an upgrade for this amplifier. Herman is the man behind the Ah!
brand that gave us the amazing Njoe Tjoeb
4000 valve CD player and he is now
designing and marketing valve amplifiers
under the name of PrimaLuna. They are
available from Ricardo Franassovici of
Absolute Sounds in London (020 8971
3909). The ProLogue One is the first of
the range to be produced and Dominic
scored it as ‘Excellent’ and also good value
for money. However, he did indicate that
it had a few shortcomings and I was
hopeful that some of these would be
addressed by the upgrade.
The amplifier is as heavy as you would
expect with quality transformers, weighing
Figure 1. The ProLogue One with the Valve Cage
in at 35.5lb. The valve line up consists of Fitted
Electroharmonix 12AX7 and 12AU7
drivers feeding a pair of EL34s running in Class AB push-pull mode to deliver the 35W
output. The quality of finish of the amplifier is very high and there is a removable cage to
protect the valves (see Figures 1 and 2). Of course, with this article being for the DIY
Supplement, I wasn’t going to stop there!
I soon had the bottom cover off so I could
access the screws holding the transformer
cover in place and removed that as well!
With reference to Figure 3, the mains
transformer on the left sits behind the two
large mains smoothing capacitors and the
two output transformers can be seen on the
right. Turning the amplifier over to expose
the inside shows just how beautifully it is
made (Figure 4). All the wiring is point-
to-point with high quality components and
cabling, as well as metal screening that is
securely screwed to the main chassis. Figure 2. The Cage Removed
Herman achieves this level of quality in an
amplifier of this price by having them built in China. The power supply uses solid state
rectification, but employs a smoothing choke, which can be clearly seen on the left. The only
printed circuit board used is for the fixed bias components. This is the board that will be
replaced by the AABB.
So what exactly is an ‘AABB’? This stands for Adaptive AutoBias Board and the upgrade
consists of replacing the fixed bias board with this board. However, before attacking the
ProLogue One with my soldering iron, I connected the amplifier into my system and settled
down for some listening tests with the unmodified unit.
My initial reactions were most favourable.
With no signal and my ear close to the bass
unit of my somewhat inefficient
transmission line loudspeakers, I could
detect no hum whatsoever – quite a feat for
a valve amplifier! Starting off with some
baroque music, the amplifier had the
distinctive ‘valve’ sound with a warm but
clear top end. At normal listening levels,
the strings sounded melodic and flowing
with no harshness. Image placement was
very good indeed, although there was not
the depth to the sound that I was used to.
Moving on to a full orchestra, the bass
drum in the opening section of Stravinsky’s
Figure 3. The Amplifier with all Covers Removed
The Firebird Suite was clearly there,
although it did seem a little uncontrolled.
Pulling out all the stops with the infamous
Telarc digital recording of Tchaikovsky’s
1812 Overture, the live cannons certainly
packed a punch, but the clamouring of the
bells in the conclusion made me feel that
the amplifier was having a little difficulty
in keeping up with all that was going on!
On the lighter side, Thelma Houston’s
vocals in the Sheffield Labs direct-to-disk
recording “I’ve Got the Music in Me” had a
presence that was quite captivating and the
bass was very well extended, but here again
Figure 4. The Inside of the ProLogue One
it tended to be a bit muddy if you turned
the wick up.
All in all, it is a very good sounding amplifier, perhaps best suited to either rock music or
small musical ensembles and for the price, it is very hard to beat.
The Adaptive AutoBias System
Now it was time to install the Adaptive AutoBias Board. Firstly, a bit of theory. According
to Marcel Croese, Herman’s resident technical genius, bias is mostly achieved by passive
circuitry that is tied to an active part in the signal path. Generally this only works in the DC
domain and passes all the delicate audio information without affecting it. For valve output
stages, either fixed bias or self bias (cathode bias) is used. Fixed bias is used in the original
ProLogue One as it is efficient and has a minimal affect on the signal. Self-bias requires a
large capacitor to bypass the cathode resistor and this arrangement has the potential to affect
audio quality more than fixed bias and also tends to waste power. However, fixed bias has
problems too as the circuitry is unable to
track the valves’ changing characteristics
over time. It can also exhibit non-linear
behaviour under standard conditions,
adding distortions and unwanted signals to
the audio signal.
In an effort to get rid of these drawbacks,
Marcel and his team have developed the
Adaptive AutoBias system. The system is
inherently linear and presents no reactive
load to the valve circuitry whatsoever. It is
also completely stable under all normal Figure 5. The Upgrade Components
temperature and voltage conditions. They
have achieved this by employing high
quality parts throughout the circuitry that
have precisely defined temperature
coefficients.
The other problem to overcome is that a
fixed bias system does not compensate for
the valve’s tendency to use the audio signal
as an extra bias voltage, especially at high
levels and low frequencies. The fixed
bias, as the name implies, keeps on
injecting a fixed voltage upon which the
audio signal rides. This can result in
moments of impoverishing the valves,
pinching them off slightly, producing Figure 6. The Manual Bias Board Ready for
Removal
instances of rapidly elevating crossover
distortion and compression, bringing a
certain harshness to the sound. This could
be the cause of the criticisms I found with
the unmodified ProLogue One.
The Adaptive AutoBias system avoids
these problems by reading the audio signal
and making infinitesimal adjustments to the
bias voltage which, Marcel claims, results
in far superior valve behaviour and
dramatically reduces distortion levels by
more than half. So much for the theory,
but will it work in practice?
Installing the AABB Figure 7. The Manual Bias Board Disconnected
and On Its Way Out!
Figure 5 shows the upgrade parts that
Herman sent me from Holland. Everything was included, including a pair of resistors and
heat-shrinkable tubing to enable a small
modification to the global feedback
network to be made and four resistors fitted
to the ends of each wire going to the EL34s
to improve stability and reduce HF Figure 8. The AABB
distortion. Plugging in my trusty soldering
iron, I set to work on the ProLogue One. I
had been given access to information for
distributors and dealers that provided me
with very clear step-by-step instructions on
how to undertake the upgrade. Firstly, the
power supply capacitors were checked with
my multimeter to ensure they were
completely discharged; otherwise a 100
ohm 9 Watt resistor applied across the
terminals does the job far less painfully and
more effectively than my fingers! Now
the original fixed bias board could be
removed (Figure 6). This entailed
Figure 9. Feedback Network in its Original
unsoldering 8 wires from the valve sockets,
Position
two power supply wires from the board and
removing the two screws that held the
board in place (Figure 7).
Now it was time to fit the new AABB
(Figure 8). This was a bit more fiddly as it
involved cutting, stripping and re-routing
leads from the power supply to
accommodate the new board - 7
connections in all. The board could then be
screwed in place and finally the 12 wires
from the AABB had to be connected to the
appropriate valve socket pins.
Figure 10. Feedback Network replaced with a
Finally, the global feedback network was Resistor
removed from its original location as
shown in Figure 9, to allow the additional
resistor to be installed in its place. As can
be seen in Figure 10, a small piece of white
tubing was supplied to indicate that this
little modification had been carried out!
The feedback network was then re-installed
closer to the valve by wiring it directly onto
the valve base (Figure 11). That
completed the installation of the upgrade
and Figure 12 shows the AABB in place.
Normally, the AABB requires no
adjustment as this is undertaken in the
Figure 11. Feedback Network in its New Position
factory. However, an upgrade board will
not have been installed before and so an initial adjustment is required. Once set, this will
never need changing, even when replacing valves, as the circuit automatically compensates
for this. There is one potentiometer on the board that sets the bias conditions for all four
output valves. All that is required is to connect a multimeter set to the 2VDC range to pin 8
(the cathode) of one of the EL34s and switch on. As the amplifier warms up, the voltage
should start to slowly rise to about 0.6V,
then drop to around 0.2V and finally settle
on 0.35V. If the voltage is too low, the
potentiometer should be adjusted to set the
final voltage to 0.35V. The remaining
three valves can be checked to see if they
behave in the same way to ensure that the
board has been wired in correctly. No
further adjustment of the potentiometer
should be required.
It is interesting to note the behaviour of the
circuit when checking the remaining valves Figure 12. The Finished Upgrade
as this entails switching off the amplifier,
moving the multimeter to the next valve’s cathode and switching on again. Since the
amplifier has already warmed up and given that solid-state rectifiers have been used in the
power supply, one would normally expect the output valves to conduct fully for an instant at
switch-on, with a fixed bias design. This would shorten the life of the valves. However, the
AABB includes circuitry to compensate for this and when power is re-applied, the voltage
(from the residual charge stored in the power supply capacitors) drops to zero for a couple of
seconds, before slowly rising as before. All clever stuff!
Listening Tests
Now it was time to settled down to do some serious listening tests. In view of the claims
made by the designer and the shortcomings I had found with the unmodified unit, I was
hoping to hear improvements, such as greater clarity and tightness of bass and a reduction of
harshness. I was not disappointed: the improvement was nothing short of amazing! The
overall difference with the AABB installed is considerable, and almost unbelievable when
you take into consideration that it was the same amplifier, but biased more intelligently.
The strings positively sparkled with clarity and had lost the harshness that I had previously
detected at higher volumes. Baroque music sounds cleaner and clearer. As for the bass, it
was still tuneful, but was much more controlled and tight. My recording of the 1812
Overture with live cannons was breathtaking and the clamouring of the bells in the
conclusion was clear and uncluttered - no problem for this amplifier now! The bass drum
had clearly been tightened up in the opening section of the Stravinsky. One criticism I had
of the unmodified amplifier was that it seemed to have difficulty in coping with the complex
sound of a full orchestra. The AABB had solved that problem completely. Organ music
sounds superb - totally clear with clean bass registers and a transparent top end. The
vocals of Thelma Houston were so much clearer, even at high volumes, and did not sound
boxed in as they did previously.
The AABB will add about £100 to the cost of the ProLogue One. I would say that, at £900,
this is even better value than the original ProLogue One at £800. It is beautifully made and
looks splendid, especially with the valve cover removed (who would want to keep them
covered anyway?)
The upgraded ProLogue One is simply the best sounding Class AB amplifier I have ever
heard, at any price. Need I say more?
--ooOoo--
