Help!!! I'm going nuts here!!!

Karnaaj · « **on:** 24 Sep 2004, 11:44 pm »

I just received today a Plinius 8200 mkII intergrated amp that I purchased off of Audiogon. Appearance wise the machine is perfect. No wear of any kind any where. The person I got it from replaced it with a 9200 so this machine may have not been used in a while. I plugged it in and hooked up my cd player (sony dvp-ns755v) and my speakers (soliloquy 5.0s) and started to listen. The cd I chose was Philip Aabergs High Plains which is all solo piano. Upon start up the music sounded merely ok during the slow playing at the start, but when the tempo and the volume started to increase it was virtually unlistenable. All the notes started to run into each other to the point where you could not tell what the music was. I am more familiar with this disc than any other in my collection and it sounded like crap. This is my first venture into "hi-fi" and I'm beginning to wonder if it all was a big mistake. My Onkyo 797 blows this Plinius away and it should'nt.
Is the Plinius revealing weaknesses in the rest of the system? My IC's are monster cables as is the speaker wire. I am also using the stock power cord. I realize I would achieve better results with better cables but c'mon, I would think that I would be able to at least listen to the music with what I've got. Any suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong? The peron I got this from is e-mailing me to see how much I like my new amp but I don't want to reply until i get this thing figured out. Thanks.

tkp · « **Reply #1 on:** 24 Sep 2004, 11:49 pm »

I have owned quite a bit of Plinius gear and for some reason, they all have to be on for at least a couple of days from a cold start to sound good. IMHO, you need to leave this unit turns on for three days before doing any critical listening.

Karnaaj · « **Reply #2 on:** 25 Sep 2004, 12:55 am »

I was kind of hoping someone might say that. At this point its the only thing I can think of. I pray thats the reason.

John Casler · « **Reply #3 on:** 25 Sep 2004, 01:38 am »

Sounds a little bit like the caps aren't getting fully charged. This can contribute to some very "rough" sound.

Is it plugged directly into the wall?

Karnaaj · « **Reply #4 on:** 25 Sep 2004, 01:48 am »

Hey John,
Right now it is plugged into a monster surge protector. Would it do better if plugged directly into the outlet? Its only been powered up approx. 5 hrs.

audioslave · « **Reply #5 on:** 25 Sep 2004, 01:58 am »

Karnaaj,
I have the Odyssey Stratos Amp and it takes a long time to get fully charged. That is why I leave it on all the time. So just be patient before jumping to conclusions. After coming back from vacation last month, my amp sounded horrible after I turned it on....it took at least 24 hours to stabilize

I also have the monster power HTS2600 and used to plug both by Tempest Preamp and the Stratos into it. It sounded ok but when I plugged both the amp/pre to my wall outlet-BAM! huge difference. Much more dynamic and the music seem to come alive. The only pieces of equipment that I plug into my Monster Power at this point is my CDP and the Tuner. In my opinion the monster is limiting/filtering the current too much and not letting your equipment truly breath.
Hope this helps

tkp · « **Reply #6 on:** 25 Sep 2004, 02:17 am »

Quote from: Karnaaj

Hey John,
Right now it is plugged into a monster surge protector. Would it do better if plugged directly into the outlet? Its only been powered up approx. 5 hrs.

Except for the BPT 3.5 Signiture, in my experience, every PLC hurt the amp. The BTP3.5 also hurt the amp but it made up for it else where. You should plug the Plinius 8200 directly into the wall outlet.

Karnaaj · « **Reply #7 on:** 25 Sep 2004, 04:36 pm »

I've gone ahead and plugged the unit directly into the wall and has been so for about 14 hours. No difference that I can tell. I'm wondering if the unit got damaged during shipping? I'm at a complete loss as to what to do now.

PhilNYC · « **Reply #8 on:** 25 Sep 2004, 06:15 pm »

This might be a stupid suggestion, but maybe you've got a speaker cable or something not connected quite right? Believe it or not, I had a customer who was unhappy with his speakers (B&W n801)...said so for months. Finally, he went to disconnect them to audition another pair of speakers when he noticed that the spade wasn't quite properly connected to the binding post. He fixed it, and voila! He loves his speakers!

(sucked for me, because he ended up not buying new speakers...!)...

John Casler · « **Reply #9 on:** 26 Sep 2004, 01:29 am »

Quote from: Karnaaj

I've gone ahead and plugged the unit directly into the wall and has been so for about 14 hours. No difference that I can tell. I'm wondering if the unit got damaged during shipping? I'm at a complete loss as to what to do now.

Hmmmm... Other things to try:

1) check all the fuses, sometimes an open fuse will still allow "distorted" sound to come through.

2) check the source and make sure "it" didn't just happen to fail at this tuime

3) Try different interconnects and inspect the integrity of both the output and input RCA jacks on the player and the amp to make sure they are not loose or damaged

4) try a different input to make sure that the CD "in" is not damaged in some way. Since this amp has a phono input, running the CDP through it could give similar symptoms (if not worse) so make sure that is not the case.

Good luck

Karnaaj · « **Reply #10 on:** 26 Sep 2004, 07:47 pm »

All right, I think I have a handle on this. The amp has definately settled down quite a bit. There is still some harshness in the treble region but I think its more the fault of my cables and source rather than the amp. I just did not realize that an already broken in amp would need this much time to get going. All suggestions were greatly appreciated and and followed up on. I guess being my first step into hi-fi I overeacted a bit.

tkp · « **Reply #11 on:** 27 Sep 2004, 03:28 am »

Quote from: Karnaaj

All right, I think I have a handle on this. The amp has definately settled down quite a bit. There is still some harshness in the treble region but I think its more the fault of my cables and source rather than the amp. I just did not realize that an already broken in amp would need this much time to get going. All suggestions were greatly appreciated and and followed up on. I guess being my first step into hi-fi I overeacted a bit.

I still remembered years ago when I first owned the Plinius SA100 MK III. I was shocked to find out how horrible it sounded after I turned it off for one week. It took at about 3 days with continuous power on for the amp to get back its sound. I learned from that day on to leave the Plinius gear on all the time. This was one of the reason why I decided to sell the amp because I have small children at the time and it was dangerous to leave thing on all the time.

Marbles · « **Reply #12 on:** 27 Sep 2004, 03:35 am »

edited

Unhalfbricking · « **Reply #13 on:** 27 Sep 2004, 03:36 am »

I too have a Plinius 8200 MkII and I can assure you or should that be reassure you that this is one fantastic amp. If you visit the Plinius website you will see that Plinius recommend that their amps be left switched on at all times. They also say that the amp requires 24 hours to warm up from cold. This makes a big difference to the sonics. When not in use switch to the stand-by mode. The 8200's power usage is negligible while in standby mode, typically no more than a very low powered light bulb.