Comparison - PliniusSA-102 and AES Six Packs Mono Block

Since I do not have any opportunity to compare between Plinius SA-102 (CURRENTLY have one) and Six Packs mono block amplifier, can anyone suggest whether to try for Six Packs amplifier or not. Will I get a substantial difference?I mostly listen to Jazz. Room size is 25' by 13' and my listening position is about 14' from the front wall

Well, it really depends on your definition of "substantial difference". What one considers substantial may be minute difference in someone else's opionion. Let's start with the obvious, what do you find lacking with your current Plinius? What are you looking to improve on? Have you read the reviews of the SixPacs (and its upscale sibling, Cary V12) on-line? There's one at soundstage.com which compare the SixPacs with SimAudio solid-state amplifier if you have not seen it yet.

I have a pair of SixPacs in my system and am quite happy with them. I think they are more musical than my Classe' CA300, ARC VT100, but that's my preference. You'll need to listen for yourself, and I understand that's gonna be hard to get a sample pair in your system.

Good Luck.
Spike

I think Spike put it in proper context.

FWIW, I have a Plinny SA-102 and while not a pair of 'six paks', rather, a pair of tube Rogue's.

I will admitt a large part of my current set-up was because of curiosity with respect to tube amplification. It has been five months now with my Tube MonoBlocks and I have yet to grow tired of that "mid-range lushness" !

IMO, the differences between my 150's and the SA-102 (biased to Class"A") is small. The tubes take the superb rendition of the "Plinny's" mid freq and as stated above add the extra 'lushness', which may not be accurate but sure as hell is 'musically sexy and addictive' !!

That's too many flowery adjectives, Dave.

eknuds01 said:

That's too many flowery adjectives, Dave.

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Wow !!! I guess I've read too many TAS, Stereophile over the years !

Thanx guys for your feedback. Read most of the reviews in the net.I am looking for lush midrange, better soundstage and more real like sound through my summit. I am going to part with my SA-102. Tube amp will be used only for my private listening and in a lower volume while listening to Jazz recordings. Did you upgrade your six packs with silver soldering, Jensen capacitors and Balanced input?

abhijit said:

Did you upgrade your six packs with silver soldering, Jensen capacitors and Balanced input?

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The works available at the time. Jensen caps, silver soldering, upgraded speaker binding post. Instead of feedback, I asked to have it turn into a "standby" switch instead. I understand there are others who got a volume control installed on the back as well.

Spike

Can you believe that Cary charges 3 times more for the Jensen capacitors. This is in refernce to the price quoted by the manufacturer. Total Rip-off!!

Spike said:

The works available at the time. Jensen caps, silver soldering, upgraded speaker binding post. Instead of feedback, I asked to have it turn into a "standby" switch instead. I understand there are others who got a volume control installed on the back as well.

Spike

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I have finally ordered AES Six Pacs with all the all upgrades(except capacitor upgrade) as well as the Circuit Diagram so that I can do the capacitor upgrade myself. Also ordered "Copper foil in Oil "- Audio quality capacitors from Audio Note UK. This is the first time I will be adventuring in a Tube amp. I have a concern!! I do not think there is any delay circuit for the speaker output in Six Pacs. Hope power-on surge will not cause any problem for my Summit speakers. Can anyone suggest whether I can use my Plinius for the woofer drive and the Six Pacs to drive the panel. Hope I can use both the SE and Balanced output simultaneously from Cary SLP-05.Fortunately I have a dedicated speaker cable (Top of the line from Harmonix) for Woofer and the panel. Appreciate for your feedback.

Your first venture into tube-land and you're already looking to perform surgery with the new Audio Note caps? You're very brave my friend! The rewards await when you pull off this feat!

I have absolutely no problem bi-amping my SixPacs on the panels and the Classe' on the woofer. Just practice common sense of having the pre-amp in mute when you go to turn on/off the amplifiers and you'll be fine. I usually turn on the pre-amp first (in mute), SixPacs, and then the solid-state amplfier. Wait for everything to stable out (about 45 seconds) before taking the pre-amp out of mute. Reverse the order to turn things off.

Now, I have to ask the obvious question... Why use the 100+ wpc Plinius on the woofer when you already have 2 200-watt internal amplifiers from ML?

Spike

You are right that I may not need the Plinius for bi amping because of the inbuilt amplifier of Summit.
Spike[/QUOTE]

Just to tell you that I am an electronics and telecomm engineer by profession. I have designed and assembled lot of amplifier in my young days. I was also in the design of process controller for many years. That is the reason I am very confident of replacing the caps in the first instance. Secondly, I do not agree with your idea of switching the preamp first for the simple reason, thump occurs when you put on the power amp and there is a high in-rush of current and that is the reason I used to design a delay circuit for the connection to the speakers (for Solid State designs) which is done by a timer IC (555 TYPES) or by a simple RC delay. Power on surge can affect the speakers even your preamp is muted.

abhijit said:

Secondly, I do not agree with your idea of switching the preamp first for the simple reason, thump occurs when you put on the power amp and there is a high in-rush of current

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I switch the preamp on too first, and get complete silence when I switch on the power amp; I do not get any thump. Note: I use all tube equipment, but I did not have the problem even when I had a SS amp.

abhijit said:

and that is the reason I used to design a delay circuit for the connection to the speakers (for Solid State designs) which is done by a timer IC (555 TYPES) or by a simple RC delay. Power on surge can affect the speakers even your preamp is muted.

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I am not too crazy about the idea of the signal from the power amp going through a relay; the fewer the contacts the better.

A lack of a soft start circuit is what causes that "boom". Rush of current as the amp instantly sends a boat load of current at the speakers. The soft start circuit alleviates this problem. It's built into a lot of SS amps these days.

Adamo said:

A lack of a soft start circuit is what causes that "boom". Rush of current as the amp instantly sends a boat load of current at the speakers. The soft start circuit alleviates this problem. It's built into a lot of SS amps these days.

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Thanx.I totally agree with you. Any idea whether Six Pacs amp has a soft start circuit.

abhijit said:

Any idea whether Six Pacs amp has a soft start circuit.

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Confirmed by Cary Audio that the SixPacs do NOT have nor do they need the soft-start circuit given the all-tube pedigree.

Spike

Spike said:

Confirmed by Cary Audio that the SixPacs do NOT have nor do they need the soft-start circuit given the all-tube pedigree.

Spike

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Thanx for the info. How do you find the sound of AES Six Pacs? Did you go for the full upgrade? I don't think I need bi-amping (using Plinius) since I have Summit. Hope Six Pacs will gel wonderfully with SLP-05. Did Cary modify with Standby switch? Does that mean that the Heater filaments are always on? My amp is in the making and I can request the same.

Why in the tech specs for Six pacs they say "Circuit Type - Push Pull, Triode Class A/AB. I thought it is Class A throughout.

I would go for the 805C if you have the money... or the AE to have the choice to use either output tubes (211 or 845). Go big!

Spike said:

Well, it really depends on your definition of "substantial difference". What one considers substantial may be minute difference in someone else's opionion. Let's start with the obvious, what do you find lacking with your current Plinius? What are you looking to improve on? Have you read the reviews of the SixPacs (and its upscale sibling, Cary V12) on-line? There's one at soundstage.com which compare the SixPacs with SimAudio solid-state amplifier if you have not seen it yet.

I have a pair of SixPacs in my system and am quite happy with them. I think they are more musical than my Classe' CA300, ARC VT100, but that's my preference. You'll need to listen for yourself, and I understand that's gonna be hard to get a sample pair in your system.

Good Luck.
Spike

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Did you try "Gold Lion KT88" on Six Pacs.Many people are saying that it will sound better than EL34. What is your opinion? I will try now with Six Pacs and sometime down the line I will buy their CAD211.

No, I did not try the KT88s for I'm partial to the lushness of the EL34. One of these days, I'll try the KT77, but it'll be a while before that happens. Regarding your question about the specs stating "class A/AB", I posed this question to Gerald Walsh of Cary Audio and got him stumped as well. I'm still waiting for his response on this.
Yes, Cary modified the switch to give me the capability of switching the SixPacs into standby. Yes, the heater element is always on. If you're going with the SLP-05, ask Cary to put balanced input on your SixPacs. Tell them you're using the SLP-05 as your preamp.

Spike