Introduction

Having lived through the golden age of tubes, then the move to solid state, it is wonderful to see tubes re-emerge in the world of audio. This is coincidental with vinyl popping its head up and taking a strong foothold in sales again, but that is a subject for another day.

Tubes, by their nature, require big power supplies, so I am not sure if we could call any tube component "entry-level", although there are some (relatively) inexpensive tube headphone amplifiers.

As luck would have it, there are now plenty of brands and models to choose from.

Mystère is a high-performance line of tube components manufacturerd by Durob Audio, located in The Netherlands. They also produce the PrimaLuna line, some of which we have reviewed at Secrets.

In June, 2010, we reviewed the Mystère pa21 power amplifier, which delivers 2 x 55 watts via KT88 output tubes.

The matching preamplifier, the Mystère ca21, is reviewed here.