Plinius Hiato integrated amplifier

I’m not sure if it’s the climate in New Zealand or the Lord of the Rings effect, but if the Plinius Hiato is anything to go by, they like to go large down under. The Hiato is a beast of an amplifier; I have not reviewed a larger integrated in recent times. But, it’s not unattractive even if one is discouraged from taking it out of the box on account of its bulk. The Hiato is a pretty serious piece of kit in all respects and thankfully what comes out of its speaker terminals makes all the effort worthwhile.

According to the spec it weighs 25 kilos, but that’s without the phono stage, which feels like it adds another 10 kilos or I’m getting a bit more of a lightweight in my old age. That’s not excessive for a 300 Watt amplifier: what is excessive is the remote control. I’ve definitely not come across a bigger example. It’s a foot long and weighs more than a pound, you could use it as a bludgeon to fend off attackers. I presume that either Kiwis are all gorillas or that it acts as a heat sink to cool down your hands in the summer. The explanation from Plinius is that they do the majority of the machining, surface finishing, and anodizing on site and they use ‘through-hole’ components rather than surface mount, which makes for a bigger PCB inside. Plinius also wanted to use the same buttons as you find on the amp itself, all of which makes for a handset you are not going to lose in a hurry. It gives access to four single-ended line inputs, two balanced, and an optional phono stage. The latter adds £1,300 to the price, but does at least have variable loading and gain accessible from the back panel. There’s also home theatre bypass for incorporation into a surround system, effectively turning the Haito into a power amp for external processors.

Looking at the rest of Plinius’s extensive range of electronics, the top power amp, the SA Reference, looks a lot like it was used in this integrated. Both share the same power rating but the power amp has twice the current capability and weighs more than twice as much. So clearly the resemblance is not very deep, the power amp section is actually based on the Plinius SB 301, but has been adapted to suit the available space. It looks more like the Tautoro preamp and this part of it is ‘largely related’ to that range topper.

The chassis construction looks more complicated and expensive than the ‘square box with a big facia’ approach used by many but this is presumably related to the in-house metalworking. That also explains the bright blue rear panel which makes a pleasant change. That panel houses the aforementioned inputs alongside preamp outputs in single-ended and balanced varieties plus a line output on RCA phonos. There are gain and loading settings for the MM/MC phono input, with five impedance options allied to four degrees of gain from 50dB to 66dB. The front panel has input and phase switching, alongside a minijack input for portable devices. There is no headphone output.

I noticed that the Hiato stays quite warm in standby mode, and the spec says 69W is consumed in that state. I also spotted that another reviewer suggested it needs a few days to warm up and settle down. It thus joins a select few brands its polar bear bothering tendencies of drawing a lot of power when sleeping and needing to sleep when not in use, so the ecologically inclined will have to install a few more panels to offset their musical enjoyment. I imagine that solar could be a remarkably clean source of AC if only the sun shone when you wanted to listen!

When hooked up to a pair of Bowers & Wilkins’ remarkable 802 D3 loudspeakers and a source consisting Melco N1ZH digital transport and CAD 1543 Mk2 DAC, the sound produced is muscular, but in a good way. The velvet gloves are on but the iron fist is clearly in control and, as suggested, it does take a while to relax and become one with the speakers. During which time you get used to its power delivery and start to enjoy what you are hearing, which in my case included ‘Deck’s Dark’ from A Moon Shaped Pool [Radiohead, XL]. Here the vocals were particularly clear, while the surrounding music had all the scale you expect with plenty of 3D solidity. There is a degree of sound-sculpting on this album that takes a decent amplifier to resolve effectively, which the Hiato does it very well and exposes all the reverb and effects used to achieve it in the process. It gives a real insight into the skills of the band and their producer Nigel Godrich.

Bill Wither’s ‘Sweet Wanomi’ [Just As I Am, A&M] is very different as befits its all-analogue production and vintage. Here the bass is round and fat while the vocals are warm and rich. This is a suitably transparent amplifier, but one that has the power to deliver bass weight when it’s called for, without leaving any obvious trace of itself. So complex electronica has all the body and depth you want presented in clear-cut layers with an apparently effortless delivery. It does the work so you don’t have to. It times well too, which is a nice trick for a powerful amp. When there’s a groove it finds it immediately and your head and/or feet respond. This was made obvious on Doug MacLeod’s ‘Too Many Misses’ from Exactly Like This [Reference Recordings], which is a stunning recording, but one where you can often be wowed by the imaging but remain uninvolved with the music. This Plinius won’t let that happen thanks to definite leading edges with no apparent grain, just smooth musical flow.

Combined with this are excellent dynamics at both high and low levels. It’s easy to make an impact when the level is cranked, but it takes a special amplifier to deliver the same contrast at quieter volumes. Vivaldi’s excellent Belleza Crudel [Tone Wik, Alexandra Opsahl, 2L] made this obvious by pulling me into the music when I’d left it down low in an attempt at focusing on the writing side of the job, that didn’t work for all the right reasons.

I tried using the Hiato with a Rega RP8 turntable running Rega’s Apheta 2 moving coil, and while it had plenty of gain, it proved impossible to get a hum-free result. The Rega doesn’t have an earth lead so I tried connecting the amp’s earth to the arm base but that didn’t help, I also flipped the ground lift switch on the back of the amp to little effect. An SME turntable and arm proved quieter but not entirely silent either, so it’s possible that there was a fault in this department. It sounded good nonetheless, with many of the same characteristics found with the line inputs. Whether it warrants the cost will depend on what you have in the way of an external phono amp: I tried a Tom Evans Microgroove+ MkII, which costs a little less, and this had better dynamics, and timing and detail resolution that was in the same league as the onboard stage. The Hiato does have a warmer and fuller balance, however, and depending on cartridge this might swing it for some.

Used as a regular integrated I found that nothing I had to hand could better it, even separate pre/power combos of similar price. Its timing always had the upper hand in any comparison I could make. The one amp that gave it a close battle is the new PM-10 from Marantz, which has a distinctly smoother balance, and a beguiling silkiness that makes the Plinius seem a little too obviously powerful. That said, the Hiato is no less transparent to musical detail and has a solidity that’s very convincing. The presentation does in some ways seem more honest and visceral, it’s a bit of a chalk and cheese comparison really but does highlight the sense of realism, the sweat and sawdust of live music being that much more palpable in its hands.

This piece of Kiwi beefcake is well featured, solidly yet elegantly built, and comes from a company that is responsible for far more of the actual manufacturing than you will find with many brands. Its character is pretty subtle by the standards of high powered amps and I would be very happy to give the Plinius Hiato a home, just so long as I didn’t have to move it too often!

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Type: Solid-state, 2-channel integrated amplifier with optional built-in phonostage
• Analogue inputs: One MM/MC phono input (via RCA jacks), four single‑ended line-level inputs (via RCA jacks), two balanced inputs (via XLR connectors), one HT bypass input (via RCA jacks and XLR connectors), one aux input (via 3.5mm jack)
• Digital inputs: N/A
• Analogue outputs: One pre-out (via RCA jacks and XLR connectors), one line output (via RCA jacks)
• Supported sample rates: N/A
• Input impedance: not specified
• Output impedance (preamp): not specified
• Headphone Loads: N/A
• Power Output: 300Wpc @ 8 Ohms, 450Wpc @ 4 Ohms
• Bandwidth: Not specified
• Distortion: Typically < /+ 0.05% THD at rated power.
• Signal to Noise Ratio: Not specified
• Dimensions (H×W×D):
  170 × 450 × 455mm
• Weight: 25kg
• Price: £8,600 (£9,900 with phono stage)

Manufacturer: Plinius

Tel: +64 3 982 4766

URL: www.pliniusaudio.com

UK Distributor: Padood

Tel: +44 (0) 1223 653199

URL: www.padood.com

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