Plinius M16 or Plinius M8????

Hi Lak, look like you have a dream system that I always look up to. As you said, I think the M16 will be my first choice and let me know if you want to part with it.

Having owned both the 250 and the M16 I'd not match the 250 with the M16. My experience was the 16 is a "good" performer, just not a great performer. At the time I owned the 16 I had a BAT VK40 w/phono which, sonically speaking, blew the 16 out of the water. Great brick remote that doubles as a barbell exerciser though. Plinius builds superb amps, which one has to search far and wide, and generally spend megabucks to find better performance. However, I'm not a fan of their preamps, and found the 16 nothing special, even at the low prices they occasionally appear used. I'd mate most any BAT, or Pass, preamp with the SA250. I desired the 16, for reasons of manufacturer matching, to deliver the goods but in the end it could not. Great phono stage in the unit though!

My M16P works well with SA102 even though I think SA102 can do better with a better preamp. I have not heard M8, but I also had CD-LAD. I could not hear any difference between CD-LAD and M16P. I think M8 and M16 would not sound much different either.
I sold CD-LAD because it had only three inputs.
M16P's phono is pretty good. It is a bit bright sound. It is also very quiet. To better sound, you should pay at least $1000 for a separate phono preamp. A good thing about M16P is, you can get it used at under $1500, or even close to $1000.