Plinius amp and Conrad-Johnson 16LS

I like the Placette buffered preamp - has none of the hard grain of most moderately priced ss preamps, and has the pacing that is so hard to find in valve preamps. Can be had on a money back trial - but its construction is tenuous. My advice is don't open it and you will never know. The E-A-R feet will only handle about 10 to 20 lbs comfortably each. Six or eight of them ought to be right for the SA102. The Walkers are very good, but with less warmth that the E-A-R feet. In fact the E-A-R are just a finishing touch - the key issue is those Neuance shelves (or something similar) - I have not tried Ken's new version for heavier components.

By the way JD - are you using the SA102s bridged, or bi-amping? There are downsides to using Plinius amps in balanced or bridged modes.

I had a Plinius SA-100 Mk III which I sold almost two years ago. There are things I loved about the Plinius and others which I felt clearly prevented me from classifying it among the best. I loved the midrange. In my system, I never heard a cleaner, more distortion free sound than that. Talk about seeing the world for the first time through a clean window! The upper mids might be a little bright, but that never bothered me. It added a little life and air to certain instruments and vocals, even if it wasn't absolutely neutral. It had outrageous bass slam and dynamics like few amps that I have heard. On the down side, despite the slam, the bass wasn't as deep as it should be. A top solid state amp should go lower than the Plinius. On the other end of the spectrum, highs are a little rolled off. Detail and soundstage reproduction are just a couple of notches below the highest level. Despite the negatives, I would say that taken in total, it gives a lot of sound for the money and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Your initial emotional reaction to this amp tends to be very positive before you try to analytically pick apart its sound to find individually what is there and what is not. Even today, as a very happy Pass Aleph 4 owner, which I feel is a significantly better amp, there is a lot I miss about my old Plinius. I would say that if you are auditioning tube preamps to go with the Plinius, you should definitely listen to the CAT SL-1 Ultimate with the Plinius. Those two had TREMENDOUS synergy. I recently A/B'ed the CAT Ultimate and the Conrad Johnson 16LS in an audition. IMO, the CAT blew away the CJ. In that audition, we were using a VAC Renaissance tube amp, not a Plinius.

Thank-you Rayhall, excellant reply. I owned the SA-100 MK II for a couple years before going to the Aloia. I used a Kora Eclipse pre-amp. I had some major equipment failure with the plinius wich blew my Dunlavy III cross-overs and drivers along with the cd player. I have always wondered if it was my emotions or reality that I missed the Plinius. Now that I've had the chance to try a Plinius again I know it's the amp I like best of all I've heard. (I've listened to most) I am interested in your choice of CAT, what did you find between the CAT and CJ that makes you feel the CAT was better?
Redkiwi- I looked into the Placette as you suggest. Very interesting! From all the reviews I still am a bit lost as to the mid-range qualities. Have you had direct experience? As with the CAT it's hard to audition either without taking a leep of faith, even if I can return it. I'm assuming you were refering to using the RCA jacks and vertically bi-amping the Plinius rather than balanced and bridged mono-blocks. I plan to vertical amp and RCA. Why is it that bridged is not as good?

Another thought Rayhall, The Plinius SA102 has two power transformers each about 7 1/2" diam. vs the single in the SA-100This might help the bass and high end roll-off you sensed.

JD, the Placette has a very clean grainless mid that, if it has a coloration, it is an added sparkle - a slight golden glow.

The SA102 sounds much more like the SA250 than the SA100 III did - ie more liquid (less dry - whatever) and fuller, plus better extension at the extremes.

The balanced on the Plinius amps that I have taken apart, is not balanced at all. That is, the amp is not balanced - just the input. They use an IC (yuck) to handle the inversion, meaning when you use balanced you get the sound of an additional stage - that is executed by using a simple IC. You could probably deduce from this that Plinius believe in single-ended (RCA) and do not believe that making the amp fully balanced is worth it - and I would agree with them. Just don't waste your money on balanced interconnects. Listening to a Plinius amp and comparing RCA with balanced will prove this to you - more grit with balanced.

I am pretty sure the bridging involves the use of ICs on the input side too, but cannot say for certain.