Plinus vs. Burmester amps

Hi Falconquest,

Let me offer you my take. I currently own a Burmester 956mk2. It is the best amp I have ever owned. It combines the best qualities of solid state and tubes. I have never owned the 2 Plinius amps you are considering but did own the Plinius 9200 integrated. I liked the Plinius a lot but the Burmester is in another league. On the other hand, it is not a fair comparison due to the tremendous price difference between the 2 products. I owned the Pass Labs XA100.5 monoblocks prior to buying the Burmester amp. I sold the Pass Labs amps as I found Burmester to embody the best attributes of Class A sound and yet have more dynamic slam compared to Pass. I am not sure if you can extrapolate my experience with the Pass Labs Class A monoblocks to the Plinius Class A amps you are considering. All I know is that buying the Burmester put an end to my amp search. I have owned it for almost 2 years now. I will say that if you go for Burmester, my suggestion would be to buy the cheaper 956 as it does not suffer in comparison to the 911 which is twice the price. Saving a few bucks never hurts!
I hope this helps.

Thanks Apdoc, I appreciate your comments. I realize there are likely few people who have heard both of these amps so any comparison is good. My concern with the Plinius is the heat issue and the hour or so warm up time for class A. Burmester seems to have resolved this. Does the 956 have enough power for you? I am running fairly efficient speakers so I don't think power will be a problem. 96db and 4 ohm.

Burmester!! Outstanding and very refined sound quality.

Hi Falconquest,

With those speaker specs, the Burmester 956 would hardly break a sweat. I have used it with multiple speakers--the toughest load was 87db and 4 ohms. The amp drove the speakers to satisfactory levels without even getting warm.
Also, unlike pure Class A amps, I can leave the Burmester on all the time without spiking my electricity bill.

There is no 1 hour warn up time for a plinius sa amp. With my Martin Logan summits in the last, 10 seconds on class a and you can tell a big difference.

Was it hot? Yeah but not too hot to touch. Plus you can leave it in a/b.

And lastly, sa-103 has about 40w of class a power while the sa ref has 100w. The rest is class ab.