Plinius SA-100MKII
I purchased a Plinius sa-100mkii power amp new in 1997. It ran well for about 6yrs and I put it away. Last year I brought it out of exile and started using it again while I had my set of Levinson 23’s rebuilt. I put the PLINY on the variac to get it running without shocking it . It ran well until about two weeks ago when I had one of the channels stopped working and the amp shut down. I was not prepared for what I saw when I opened the amp. The rail fuse was blow so I looked for the cause when I turned the amp over I found what can be only described as poor amplifier design. The IEC cord was melted to the power transformer and was badly burnt. This damage had occurred over a long period of time due to the fact that the condition of the cord was brittle like christmas ribbon candy. I looked to see if perhaps the cord had come loose from some retaining clips but there was no evidence of there ever being any clips. The soft start resistor had blown due to failure of the soft start mechanism the resistor was simply siliconed to the soft start circuit board there was no resistor cradle to hold it in place and the silicone simply melted allowing the resistor to hang this allowed the IEC cord to lay up against the transformer and melt itself to it.When I contacted Plinius support they acknowledged that the soft start mechanism used in the 100 series was defective and was 98 percent due to failure but they made no effort to replace these for there customers when they knew of the problem after the first run of the sa-100 mkI. I have spent a lot of money on Plinius products, I also own the m14 phono pre and the m16 preamp .I will never buy another piece of Plinius audio again.The potential for fire from the innate stupidity of them trying to save a few dollars by not correcting these issues when they knew that the soft start module was bad and the tech also admitted that they where trying to save money by also shortening the IEC cord and by not using retaining clips and cradles. So now I have to pay the total amount for the sending and return of my amp and not to mention the cost of the labor and parts to fix the amp, new IEC cord,soft start module, soft start resistor , new output transistors and who no’s what else because a bunch of Kiwi eating audio designers wanted to save a few bucks. Now that’s what I call customer support.
Bob
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