Pre-Amp For Plinius Power Amp

Hello Jonchew Ive also got a plinius sa 102 [2- one silver and one black serial #s 2173/1865] in mono and a p-8 for my center along with an sa 100 mk3 on surrounds in a hometheatre setting, personally ive not tried many preamps only an Adcom gfp 750 with my initial Plinius sa100mk3,that with a Kora hermes tubed dac using Pearl cryovalves"1975 nos cv2492/ and 1964 mullards matched pairs , also have a Magnum Dyn. 102 triode tuner using amperex bugle boys matched pr.What Ive done is use pliniuses M-8 preamp along with tubes in my source, thus tuberolling to audibly tweek sound to my liking. Many like pliniuses sa poweramps; me also, however the preamp seems not as highly regarded but for me with theyre hometheatre bypass and rich dynamic sound ,its a perfect match as it was designed to go with theyre poweramps.So with all due respect to Mr Jadem6 as hes assembled a very nice system dont count the M-8 out as a synergistic match as the company intended.P.S. I personally did not want to go through endless hours auditioning different preamps so the M8 was a easy solution and in the last 18 months of use has provided me with endless hours of musical enjoyment.NO REGRETS! Good luck in your quest!!!Regards Tim W.

The Plinius has normal input impedance and fairly high sensitivity so it can be matched with everything from tubes, SS or passive. Maybe, use no preamp at all if you are just using CDP and find one with variable output.

There are very few amps that have the character that matches so well with passive preamps. A high gain preamp is not necessary even if you play music at concert levels with average sensitivity speakers. I use a TVC based passive with a SA100 MkIII.

The Plinius M8 preamp is grossly underated. It is highly synergistic with the SA 102 adding a significant level of dynamic contrast in comparison to a Consonance R1.1 and an Audio Aero Capitole (volume attenuator in Audio Aero cdp). The synergy with the SA102 is scarcely surprising. It is said to be significantly better than the Plinius M16. Plinius is in the process of developing a new reference preamp.

Kevin

I had a Plinius M16 with my SA-250 and replaced it with an ARC Ref2 MkII. What a difference. Everything is better now. Even bass quality.

I have used a Reference Line PreEminence 2 passive with my SA100 MkIII for several years with very good results. I now use a Joule LA100 MkIII and am extremely happy with this combo as well.