Monday, May 1, 2017

Plinius 2b and VII

Had a surprisingly hard time trying to locate pix for these units on the internet - they were hardly any, not even on Plinius own site. Only managed to locate the following on a NZ audio magazine site.

The Plinius Plint from AudioEnz


For Plinius fans who wish to know a bit more of the original Plinius history in NZ, checkout the following NZAudio interview with Plinius Founder, Peter Thompson.

Before the internet era, I was informed by a local Auckland hifi reseller Plinius came about much alike the history of Lamborghini and Ferrari - Lamborghini made his fortune selling agriculture equipment after WW2 and bought a then much desired Ferrari, only to be severely disappointed; had a bad spate of words with Enzo himself before deciding to show the world what a Ferrari should have been, with his own brand of super cars!

I was introduced to the Plinius 2b & VII in 1988 while flatting in Auckland, New Zealand. My flatmate took home a set of the "Plint" for evaluation, to replace a Rotel integrated amp since the Rotel could not drive a pair of Celestion SL6s properly.

From memory, the Plint sounded decent up to 30% of the volume dial. Between 30-50%, it lacked the punch but still maintained it's poise with dignity.

That was until my flatmate decided to leave it at 50% on the volume dial as he wanted to enjoy the music in the garden - after all, it was a beautiful Summer's day.

About 30min later, our noses picked up a strong burning smell in the air! We started checking around the house but could not locate any smoke nor anything burning. It was not until we enter the living room that we hit the jackpot - the smell was chokingly strong there! After more nos-ing around, we were surprised to discover that it was coming from the Plinius VII!!! Needless to say ... no more good audio that day.😏(true account, not made up)

My flatmate returned the Plint on the next working day. Later that week, he returned with a then brand new Plinius 3100B (article for the near future) and a traded-in Luxman C-02.


Plinius 2c (with extra dial but less buttons; looks similar to 2b). From AudioNZ

Plinius VII from local NZ eBay equivalent site

2 comments:

  1. Great to hear (belatedly) someone else even knows about this pair.
    I still use mine on a daily basis with my Lambert Timekeeper 225's keeping it Kiwi:)
    If you interested I have my original brochures etc

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    1. That would be GREAT ... would need to trouble yourself to have them scan and e-mailed to myself as I am not in NZ at the moment, and by the looks of things, may not be back for a while yet.

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