Are there ANY Plinius SA-250 MKIV owners around?

Hi –
I found the Plinius SA-250 v4 a lot smoother and more refined than the Bryston ST series.

The Plinius is very warm, lush, and euphoric with a stronger emphasis on bloom, decay. It’s one of the more traditional tubey-like sounding solidstate amps that I’ve heard, (but doesn’t quite 3d like the real thing). I heard the Plinius driving a pair of the bigger Martin Logans and Diana Krall was s’wonderful, but when I tried the 250 v4 (heavy sucker) on my Maggie 3.6’s it was excessively euphoric. Everything sounded too smooth, liquidy, and lacked dynamic impact and PRAT – Krall was still s’wonderful, but Basie was boring. I got it to “swing” with a strong, dry, dynamic preamp like the ARC LS-25. Highs were excellent, midrange and bass tightened up and lost some of the bloated feeling, but never got the PRAT right for me. I like it much more on leaner or brighter speakers like Thiel or Logans.

The Bryston, although cruder was more neutral or truer to the source than the Plinius. Much stronger (in your face) attack with a lot of grunt (great for rock and heavy hitting music). Bass is excellent, but overall esp. the highs were too raw and lacked finesse. I haven’t heard the SST personally, but Bryston may have corrected the highs and refined the sound a bit on the SST series. Check for congestion and how well the images stay focused when pushed, I notice the ST seemed to loose it too quickly for a muscle amp.

If you find want a muscle amp that’s more nimble than the Plinius and way more refined than the Bryston; check out a McCormack DNA-500 or DNA-2 with Rev A mods.

Kehut – Sorry about the overly euphoric comment. FWIW, I don’t post much about specific products because of the synergy thing and only ding products that I really like.

Sutts – Can’t help with cables. Aside from what I’ve read…I think your speakers are more revealing, easier to drive, less dynamically challenged than mine. Since you already have a dry, dynamic preamp - you may not have the PRAT or personal preference issues that I had. If you like the Plinius cold, you gotta hear it with 2-3 hrs of warm-up – no more brittle highs, coarse, grainy textures, fuzzy imaging, etc. The highs with ribbon tweeters esp. cymbal attack, shimmer, decay are incredible. Vocals are smooth and buttery. Bass is full, deep and powerful – could be tighter with more slam imo. Anyway, try borrowing one and get help moving it, watch out for the corners - sharp vertical heatsinks and front handles are useless- transformers are in the back.