Hedge I can share my recent experience with the Perreaux 350 (sorry no experience with any Plinius though). First, just for fun, I went back thru the Asylum archives (per Sean's suggestion) but there's nothing referencing the current line. Mainly just invalid comparisons of some older/problematic Perreaux product to newer/more$ Plinius. Some remarks about Perreaux not sounding as smooth & airy as Plinius; a less-defined soundstage. Sean vigorously stands up against the Perreaux detractors on those threads, & after installing this mosfet 350 I must agree with him.
Recently I swapped out an all FET Ayre V3 for this monster amp Perreaux 350. The Ayre is a real nice amp, but at 100w/ch it would ran out of gas at higher listening levels. (I am aware of the Ayre V1, but it's costly & generates way too much heat; 360 watts at idle). My Ayre was sitting on Black Diamond Cones, on a Black Diamond shelf, over a set of Vibrapods. The 350 is just taller enough that I had to remove the cones & pods (leaving only the BD shelf) to fit the amp in my rack, so direct comparisons here are not yet possible under exactly equal conditions. (I still need to modify my rack to fit the Perreaux correctly). One nice thing about the Perreaux is much less idle power consumption / wasted heat, even compared to the V3. It still operates class A bias at up to 10 watts before going into sliding class A/B mode.
I kept all cables the same initially. Even when cold the Perreaux sounds more natural & dynamic; its sound reminds me of an older Luxman mosfet amp that I absolutely loved. Mids more natural & smoother. Bass has more authority & is in much better control; really has an iron-tight grip on the bottom end with a solid slam-factor. Highs I agree were not as smooth & airy as the V3, a bit edgy with a diminished stage. So I changed AC cords from a Synergistic Designers Reference Squared to a Custom Power Top Gun HCFI. That smoothed out the highs considerably; I'm still missing the air & stage of the V3, but remember that cones & pods are not yet installed either. I also need to experiment further with cabling & setup issues to determine the true capability of the Perreaux.
The biggest difference is in power output; no way I will ever hear this 350 go into clip. At the rated 350w/ch spec. they also spec. 2dB of headroom which comes out to about 550w/ch usable output at 8 ohms. Jeez the power is just incredible; you can go louder & louder & this amp never runs out of steam; it doesn't even get very warm! I just kept on cranking up the power until the point I was very afraid that a speaker (only rated 100w/ch) was going to let go, but not from amp clipping becsuse it just doesn't distort one iota. Those are my experiences with current Perreaux product & so far I'm very satisfied, but not quite delighted yet as I still have some tweaking/optimization work to do. The amp is well built, rigidly constructed like a tank. I'm still getting used to that big chrome auto-bumper faceplate (not my favorite face for an amp) but it's not bad-looking, only very different
Recently I swapped out an all FET Ayre V3 for this monster amp Perreaux 350. The Ayre is a real nice amp, but at 100w/ch it would ran out of gas at higher listening levels. (I am aware of the Ayre V1, but it's costly & generates way too much heat; 360 watts at idle). My Ayre was sitting on Black Diamond Cones, on a Black Diamond shelf, over a set of Vibrapods. The 350 is just taller enough that I had to remove the cones & pods (leaving only the BD shelf) to fit the amp in my rack, so direct comparisons here are not yet possible under exactly equal conditions. (I still need to modify my rack to fit the Perreaux correctly). One nice thing about the Perreaux is much less idle power consumption / wasted heat, even compared to the V3. It still operates class A bias at up to 10 watts before going into sliding class A/B mode.
I kept all cables the same initially. Even when cold the Perreaux sounds more natural & dynamic; its sound reminds me of an older Luxman mosfet amp that I absolutely loved. Mids more natural & smoother. Bass has more authority & is in much better control; really has an iron-tight grip on the bottom end with a solid slam-factor. Highs I agree were not as smooth & airy as the V3, a bit edgy with a diminished stage. So I changed AC cords from a Synergistic Designers Reference Squared to a Custom Power Top Gun HCFI. That smoothed out the highs considerably; I'm still missing the air & stage of the V3, but remember that cones & pods are not yet installed either. I also need to experiment further with cabling & setup issues to determine the true capability of the Perreaux.
The biggest difference is in power output; no way I will ever hear this 350 go into clip. At the rated 350w/ch spec. they also spec. 2dB of headroom which comes out to about 550w/ch usable output at 8 ohms. Jeez the power is just incredible; you can go louder & louder & this amp never runs out of steam; it doesn't even get very warm! I just kept on cranking up the power until the point I was very afraid that a speaker (only rated 100w/ch) was going to let go, but not from amp clipping becsuse it just doesn't distort one iota. Those are my experiences with current Perreaux product & so far I'm very satisfied, but not quite delighted yet as I still have some tweaking/optimization work to do. The amp is well built, rigidly constructed like a tank. I'm still getting used to that big chrome auto-bumper faceplate (not my favorite face for an amp) but it's not bad-looking, only very different