Hi 99. Yes I had read your earlier review. Living in NZ, and NZ being a very small place, I hear a lot of the "behind the scenes" gossip about how things have evolved at Plinius. One of their frustrations is the insatiable demands from the US to come out with a "new and improved" model at regular intervals. I guess there are some that just ditch their old one and grab the new one every time. I know Plinius would prefer to only do it when they have made a significant breakthrough, but the US importer has different views. I see a lot of talk about whether an 8200 is MKI or MKII, as if the MKII must be preferable. I would say there are differences, but you should listen for yourself. Similarly I see a lot of talk about MKI versus MKII for the CD-LAD, when the differences are insignificant to my ears when they are teamed with an amp that has a normal (read, not low) input impedence.
One of my two systems has the SA102 and CD-LAD in it, with Thiel speakers. This system can sound recessed on top and even a little thick in the mids with the wrong cables, but it can sound very right simply by using cables that are "wide open", not bright. It is not an issue of speed or PRAT, it is just an issue of system matching. By that I mean, don't use cables that tend to deliberately veer to warming the sound up on its way through - such as Cardas. Like every other component on the planet, you cannot just throw a Plinius into a system and expect it to sound perfectly balanced - the variabilities in all other components make such an ideal impossible for even a perfectly neutral component.
A further issue to be careful of is that Plinius amps seem to be very affected by the support you use under it. The Plinius opens up and sounds very neutral, revealing and dynamic on the right support. On the wrong support it just sounds like a good amp trying to get out of the mud.
One of my two systems has the SA102 and CD-LAD in it, with Thiel speakers. This system can sound recessed on top and even a little thick in the mids with the wrong cables, but it can sound very right simply by using cables that are "wide open", not bright. It is not an issue of speed or PRAT, it is just an issue of system matching. By that I mean, don't use cables that tend to deliberately veer to warming the sound up on its way through - such as Cardas. Like every other component on the planet, you cannot just throw a Plinius into a system and expect it to sound perfectly balanced - the variabilities in all other components make such an ideal impossible for even a perfectly neutral component.
A further issue to be careful of is that Plinius amps seem to be very affected by the support you use under it. The Plinius opens up and sounds very neutral, revealing and dynamic on the right support. On the wrong support it just sounds like a good amp trying to get out of the mud.