Are there ANY Plinius SA-250 MKIV owners around?

i don't own the sa-250 mkIV, but i do own an sa-102. i read your thread at the asylum. i'm not familiar with the bryston sound. i purchased my sa-102 as an upgrade from a pair of aragon palladium ii monos. the plinius is much more tubelike than the aragon having a richer texture in the midrange. don't get me wrong, a tube amp would sound even better than the plinius i'm sure. however, i listen to a lot of bass heavy music and tube amps that i've auditioned just can't hold their own in the deep, driving bass department. my impression of the sa-102 is that it is a very musical and dynamic amp. if i ever upgrade, i'll definitely be looking at the sa-250 mkIV.

Kgurtner- thanks for the response. I've never heard the 102, but can appareciate it is probably similar to the 250MKIV I heard recently. The 250 was great in that it seemed to control the speaker very well, and had a natural unforced 'together' quality about it. However, this was in a quick audition, and the amp/preamp/cd player literally had not been turned on for 2 months! So listening to a cold system it's tough to tell, but I am sure what I heard would get even better- do you leave your 102 on all the time?

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.