On a whim, and as a change of pace from my VAC 300.1a, I picked up a used Plinius SA-103 last summer at a really good price from someone here on A’gon. May too good of a price: it was advertised as mint but arrived with a noisy right channel. Who knows, maybe it was jarred in shipping.
Anyway, I listened to the amp for a month or so, and even with the noise I could tell it was very promising, if a little plump in the bottom and slightly closed in on top. So I contacted Frank Gazzo of Plinius USA (an extremely helpful fellow), who put me in touch with master tech Vince Galbo for repairs. Vince offered a full upgrade and repair package, replacing all caps and resistors with a selection he has refined over the course of a decade, improving the power supply, tightening tolerances, and other stuff. So I went for it.
Not only did this upgrade fix the noise, it vastly improved the sound in both Class A and Class A/B (selectable with a button up front). The bottom became tighter and deeper with more tonality; the top opened up, with more delicacy and nuance; mids became more liquid; and everything is more coherent.
Running in Class A, the stock SA-103 was a good SS amp. The Galbo-mod version, IMO, is a great SS amp that holds its own with my VAC. They sit next to each other in my rack, ready for the swapping of cables, and the Plinius actually gets more playing time. I’ve had some good SS amps in this system--Mac 501, Bryston 28B-SST2--and I still have an old Reference Line Silver Signature that I pop in now and then as another flavor. This modded Plinius is far better than the Mac or Bryston (no comparison, really--even the umodded SA-103 was better to my ears) and even outdoes the Class A Reference Line, itself an unsung hero. Vince was a pleasure to work with, too. In the end, I feel lucky to have received a noisy amp because I wouldn’t have found him otherwise.
