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Description and reviews            

The Plinius M16 Preamplifier is a remote controlled high end product available in either a line level configuration or with an optional phono board. It caters for a total of six inputs including the phono option. The CD input includes a choice of balanced or unbalanced connections. Outputs include a balanced option for connection to power amplifiers with balanced input facilities.

Construction is on two large printed circuit boards. Innovative circuitry includes a low noise J-Fet phono input in a single ended tube like configuration. The preamp's line level section is an elegant balanced-bridge amplifier using a circuit topology similar to that used in the Plinius SA series amplifers.

A major factor in the performance of the M16 is the sophisticated power supply regulation. A very high source impedance is combined with a shunt regulator using remote rail and ground sensing. This maintains ideal supply conditions over the entire audio spectrum and ensures total rejection of all supply borne noise. Important to the M16's sound is its extremely low resonance chassis. Using 12mm thick solid aluminium panels, with additional internal damping, the M16's structure is essentially acoustically "dead".

Components used include Caddock resistors and Hovland and TRT capacitors. Signal wiring utilises Siltech silver wire. As with all Plinius products the M16 is available in both anodised black and silver.

Specifications

Frequency Response: Phono RIAA and line inputs 20Hz to 20kHz ± 0.2dB.

Distortion: Typically < .05% THD at rated input level.

Hum & Noise: (Input loaded) Phono -70dB all others -80dB, A weighted.

Input Sensitivity: Phono 500uV, all others 200mV.

Input Impedance:Phono user selectable, All others 47k Ohms

Rated Output: 1.5V RMS into 10k Ohms or more. Maximum output 10V RMS into 10k Ohms or higher. (output Z = 200 Ohms).

Tape Output Level: 180mV RMS

Dimensions: Height 125mm (5"), Width 500mm (20"), Depth 340mm (14"), Weight 12kg (25lb).

The M16 preamplifier includes a sophisticated power supply housed entirely on the bottom circuit board. All regulation is done on this circuit board before passing DC through to the main board. The black aluminium and mdf tray that both circuit boards are fitted to enhances the anti-resonant properties of the M16. The manufacturing process is actually quite complex, as the sides, front, rear, and middle tray are all bolted together to provide a rigid and solid chassis.

The main board consists mainly of the line stage, and XLR CD input circuitry near the middle rear of the board. The large space on the right is where the separate modular phono board is fitted when required. The microcontroller and related circuitry (for remote control, tape overload protection, and front panel rotary encoders) is situated near the front of the circuit board.

Reviews

'THE ABSOLUTE SOUND' October/November 2000.

THE M16 LINE STAGE

'Since it shares the same basic circuit with the M14 phono stage, the M16, no surprise, sounds quite similar to its sibling. It reprises the phono stage's superb bass performance, allowing the superiority of the best digitally recorded bass to make itself felt and heard on CDs like Moby's Play [V2 6388127049-2].

' The M16 is particularly good at capturing the way instruments and voices project into an acoustic space. Timbral characteristics aside, one reason a piano does not sound like a saxophone is because of the differing ways they project sound into space. The key word here is "project," because in reproducing solo instruments, the size and shape of the source from which the sound originates controls the way the sound is radiated. The PLINIUS electronics are uncannily good at maintaining the distinctive ways that different types of instruments, including the human voice, behave in space, projecting not just forward, but three-dimensionally into a definable space and in unique individual ways. Moreover, there is no sense of physical disconnection of the source from the sound. Part of the M16's way with this trait can be laid directly at the feet of its excellent dynamic performance. Like the phono stage, the line stage has plenty of dynamic vitality and forcefulness.

The M16 also casts a very good soundstage. It does not take recordings of modest spatial proportions and turn them into wraparound spectaculars; neither does it diminish recordings that require a Cinerama-style presentation. Top tubed units and the Jeff Rowland Coherence II provide slightly more depth and a bit of extra definition to the back corners of the stage, but the M16 is a solid performer. In all cases, the M16 gives you the perspective the engineer and producer put on the recording, with no artificial constriction or sweetening. Dynamics and soundstaging converge when it is necessary to maintain instrumental separateness during moderately loud to very loud passages. The M16 keeps things in their proper places, with no defocusing of image boundaries even in demanding passages, such as the most taxing portions of Philip Glass' complete and remastered Koyaanisqatsi [Nonesuch 195062].

SUMMING UP

.....'The outstanding value and excellent sound offered by the M14 and M16 illustrates the sort of real progress that should be the High End's hallmark.

Prices M14 $3,495, M16 $4,195

Paul Bolin

Hifi+, Roy Gregory july/august 2000

Constructed on similar monolithic the M16L also shares the power-amps common sense approach. It offers six line inputs, one of which can be selected for balanced operation, and another for an optional MM/MC phono-stage. Likewise the outputs are available as either balanced or single-ended.

Internally, the line stage is configured as a balanced bridge, using sophisticated power supply regulation to help reject mains borne noise. Solidly built, the boards are littered with audiophile grade components, and whilst I remain to be convinced of the necessity of this, the brands chosen show a willingness to investigate rather than simply follow the crowd. Internal signal wiring is all Siltech, and for users who choose to employ a high quality external phono stage (such as the PLINIUS M14) the phono input can be upgraded with even better wire and a shorter signal path, a £150 option that wasn't fitted to the review unit. You get a ground switch like the one on the power-amp, and a dinky little standby button which needs to be pressed to enable the unit after switch-on.

Round the front you'll find switching for the six inputs (including the two tape loops), tape monitoring, balance and volume control. The two toggle switches are for mute and absolute phase. The remote control is particularly nice; not too heavy, with large, clearly labelled buttons. An object lesson for other manufacturers.

 

Larry Alan Kay, Fi

'The strength's? Deep powerful bass. Lots of dynamic range, with nice gradations in its employment. Outstanding imaging and soundstaging With the Plinius gear in the system, one can easily and instantly detect the changes in, for example, the rear stage corners or the corporeality of the trombones that can result from those madding quarter-inch adjustments in speaker position or toe-in. And there's great coherence in the 'feel' of the tonality and texture of sounds from the top to the bottom of the frequency range. ... in my experience to date, only the significantly more expensive Audio Research Reference One Line Stage shares the special way the Plinius replicates the way sound starts. That quick, lifelike insertion of energy into the listening room, that freedom from a sense that an electro-mechanical system is labouring to overcome inertia, is very special and represents a new area to be explored in the search for more realistic reproduction.'