Plinius amp and Conrad-Johnson 16LS

I had a Plinius SA-100 Mk III which I sold almost two years ago. There are things I loved about the Plinius and others which I felt clearly prevented me from classifying it among the best. I loved the midrange. In my system, I never heard a cleaner, more distortion free sound than that. Talk about seeing the world for the first time through a clean window! The upper mids might be a little bright, but that never bothered me. It added a little life and air to certain instruments and vocals, even if it wasn't absolutely neutral. It had outrageous bass slam and dynamics like few amps that I have heard. On the down side, despite the slam, the bass wasn't as deep as it should be. A top solid state amp should go lower than the Plinius. On the other end of the spectrum, highs are a little rolled off. Detail and soundstage reproduction are just a couple of notches below the highest level. Despite the negatives, I would say that taken in total, it gives a lot of sound for the money and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Your initial emotional reaction to this amp tends to be very positive before you try to analytically pick apart its sound to find individually what is there and what is not. Even today, as a very happy Pass Aleph 4 owner, which I feel is a significantly better amp, there is a lot I miss about my old Plinius. I would say that if you are auditioning tube preamps to go with the Plinius, you should definitely listen to the CAT SL-1 Ultimate with the Plinius. Those two had TREMENDOUS synergy. I recently A/B'ed the CAT Ultimate and the Conrad Johnson 16LS in an audition. IMO, the CAT blew away the CJ. In that audition, we were using a VAC Renaissance tube amp, not a Plinius.

I haven't yet heard a Plinius SA-102, Jadem6. So I don't know how the two transformers will affect the bass and treble extension. Has anyone A/B'd those two units for those characteristics? As far as the preamp shootout we did at a dealer, it was between the CAT, the Hovland and the CJ. The CAT was the smoothest and most balanced. The CAT emphasizes the deep bass through the mids. With this CAT in the store using stock tubes, the extreme highs were a little soft, but that can be improved with NOS tubes. Although the CAT does not sound rolled off in the highs, it doesn't give that sense of limitless high frequency extension which the Hovland can. The CAT has a beautifully integrated sound from the lowest lows through the mids. The CJ was much more emphasized on the mids, sounding to my ears rolled off at both extremes. It certainly was not anywhere near as capable in the deep bass as the CAT and it lacked that integration of low bass to mid bass to low mids etc. that, to me, makes a CAT so exceptional. The CJ had a nice remote and volume control which I wished the CAT has and the CAT has only two line inputs which are a pain, but IMO, just evaluated on sonics, there is no contest between those two. As far as the CAT and the Plinius together, most of the other CAT models are quite dynamic. The CAT Ultimate is still quite dynamic, but less so than other CAT models. Paired with the outrageous Plinius dynamics, the super clean Plinius midrange alongside the CAT which also spotlights the mids, you get great dynamics (Plinius characteristic) and super-clean sound (both Plinius and CAT characteristics) with terrific tonal layering (CAT) and musicality (CAT) in the frequency band where 80-85% of the music is. The CAT has more extension in the bass than the Plinius, so you don't give up anything there in the mating of the two. I think it is a match worth seeking out. I have heard good things about the Aloia preamp, with some saying it is as good or better than the CAT. A friend of mine feels that a very important match needs to be made between the preamp and the speakers and we didn't even talk about what speakers you are using. My feeling is that to get the most out of the CAT Plinius match, your speaker should also be a superb midrange reproducer.

Thanks, Jadem6. Good luck with your auditions and purchase decisions.