Price Paid:  $5000.00 from Melbourne

Summary:
The Plinius is an audiophile player, able to compete with the very best in terms of sound quality. It has about as many features as an audiophile turntable, so if features are your thing, you should look elsewhere. I was looking for a CD player to replace a Krell, which had been repaired half a dozen times, and was mis-behaving again. I was able to compare the Plinius with a Meridian G08, and while the Meridian offered sparkling glistening, immaculate hi-fi, it was hi-fi non-the-less. The Plinius offered music. Just natural, in the room music. Apart from sounding much more natural than the Meridian, the Plinius also timed much better, it was much easier to tap your foot to the music. It was a bit undemonstrative though, the naturalness taking a while to impress.
The Plinius has few controls. The remote has the usual basic selection, but the player itself has only a stop/open button. The play button is only on the remote. The player accepts commands from marantz (and Krell) remotes, but this is not publicized by the company. There is a repeat key, but only for the whole disc. You can't repeat individual tracks, and you certainly can't repeat an A-B loop. There is no direct track access. Track access is available via the track skip buttons, but if direct track access to track 44 is a regular requirement, you might like to look elsewhere. The only display is a series of undulating blue lights which tells you which track you are up to, but not how far through the track. A couple of times my player has not opened the CD drawer when it should, which raises questions about build quality. It has otherwise behaved well in the six months I've owned it. It is encouraging that it comes with a five year warranty. It also spins the disc at high speed, I guess to improve tracking, but it makes a bit of mechanical noise and it wouldn't play one disc which was out of balance. The mechanical noise is not audible from my listening seat. It plays CDRW's, if you care about such things. It rarely skips. It's a wonderful player if you just want to listen to music, less good if you want to play around with the disc. I would give five stars for sound, but the player gets marked down to four stars because of the mechanical noise, the occassional failure to open, and the lack of a play button or track skip controls on the front of the player.

Strengths:
Wonderful unforced unfatiguing natural sound quality. Sounds more natural and less fatiguing than competing products from Krell or Meridian, and is cheaper than them. Has five year warranty (in Australia).

Weaknesses:
Limited features and display. It lacks a play button on the front of the player, and is entirely dependent on the remote (though accepts Marantz instructions). A little mechanical noise, though less than my Pioneer DVD player.

Similar Products Used:
Krell KAV300CD, Meridian G08