Plinius Kaitaki Preamplifier Review

And it made me realize my stereo system is capable of much greater sound quality than I ever thought possible.

Plinius Audio Limited is based in New Zealand and was founded in 1980. Their current product names derive from Māori culture. The word Kaitaki describes the concept of guardianship for the sky, the sea, and the land. That name makes sense for a preamplifier, which sits at the center of a music or home theater system. I had never seen or heard of a Plinius component, so when the opportunity arose to review the Kaitaki preamplifier I couldn’t say no. Little did I know how much of a surprise it would be?

The Kaitaki follows the design language employed by Plinius throughout their current line of products. The face of each of their components is a single sheet of brushed metal with curved edges, available in black or silver. The company’s name is etched prominently in all caps in the center, and the indicator lighting is blue and white LEDs. The back panel and chassis are glossy medium blue with gray text. I find this aesthetic extremely attractive. Also, all of the unit’s panels are non-magnetic, to reduce unwanted magnetic fields that can interfere with sensitive audio signals.

Auricap XO capacitors are used in key areas of the Plinius Kaitaki’s circuit. These were chosen for their clarity and dynamic ability. Auric OFC wire is used in the input stage of the unit’s amplifier. The Kaitaki line stage power supply regulation circuit and line stage amplification circuits are very similar in design to the Plinius Hiato, the big brother integrated amplifier to the Kaitaki. This circuit design has helped keep alive the “Plinius sound” which has been described as slightly warm, with tube-like smoothness in the mid-range and lifelike bass detail and control.

Thanks to its numerous inputs and outputs, the Plinius Kaitaki can act as the centerpiece in a wide range of home theater or music systems. It also has a Line Out feature, so you can connect it to recording units or a headphone amplifier. It has terminals for remote trigger connections to allow a processor signal to bypass the preamplifier stage or trigger a power amplifier to come out of standby. Another nice feature is a ground lift switch, which allows for the signal ground to be isolated from the main chassis earth. This can assist in resolving unwanted ground loops or hum due to duplicate ground paths in some systems. Single-ended and balanced output connectors are standard.

For an extra $650, the Plinius Kaitaki can be configured with a phono stage based on the Plinius Hautonga design. The phono stage has two gain settings and five loading settings to allow for suitable cartridge matching. If you don’t need the phono stage, the input can be used as an additional single-ended line-level input. If you prefer an external phono stage, Secrets reviewer Rick Schmidt recently reviewed the Plinius Koru phono preamp and found it to be most excellent.

The remote deserves its own review.

The included remote control is massive. It’s twelve inches long and feels quite substantial in the hand. It’s also made of the same brushed silver metal as the preamp’s faceplate. On its back is a black grippy material to keep it from sliding around. It is so big I actually felt like I was holding a magic wand when I used it.

You can use the remote’s Display button to set the brightness of the source indicator lights on the face of the unit. There are four levels, including completely off, which is nice, but you cannot turn off the unit’s blue indicator light. When muted, the blue light is dimmed, and when unmuted, the blue light is brighter. Another great feature is that there is a Phase button to toggle the output signal from the preamplifier from absolute (in-phase) to inverted 180 degrees. That’s nice to have for stereo recordings which are mastered with the left and right channels reversed.

The remote’s buttons are not backlit, so it is difficult to know which button to press in the dark unless you memorize their locations. The remote control is truly a beautiful object, befitting the price and design of the Plinius Kaitaki, but I believe its usability could use some improvement.

With an MSRP of $6500, the Plinius Kaitaki preamplifier is the most expensive component I’ve ever had in my system. The preamplifier I’ve been using since 2020 is the Schiit Audio Freya+, which sells for $849. So yeah, big price difference.

After removing it from its box, I read the excellent manual provided by Plinius. It is clearly written and includes the signature of the person who performed the unit’s final test certification. This is exactly the kind of documentation and test assurance I’d expect of a component in this price range.

It’s worth noting that the Plinius Kaitaki was delivered with a standard-quality IEC power cord. Because that is what it was shipped with, that’s the power cord I used to first put the Plinius Kaitaki in my system. I connected my Orchard Audio Starkrimson Stereo Ultra amplifier with Zu Audio Mission XLR cables, which were driving a pair of Polk Audio Legend L600 speakers with bi-wired cables.

The digital source I used was an Oppo UDP-205 attached to a Schiit Audio Bifrost 2 DAC through a digital coax cable. The Bifrost 2 was connected to the Plinius Kaitaki with a Zu Audio Mission XLR cable. The preamp has both RCA and XLR inputs for its CD source, and you use a toggle switch to tell the Plinius Kaitaki which to use. However, you are not supposed to attach both RCA and XLR at the same time.

So, with the Kaitaki integrated into my system, I sat down and played a CD. And did I hear a difference in sound quality? Oh yes, I did, and I heard it immediately. There was an expansion of soundstage I’d never heard before, and the increase in low-level musical detail startled me. The Orchard Audio Starkrimson Stereo Ultra is a particularly detailed and fast amplifier in my system, but the Plinius Kaitaki enabled even more of those qualities to make it to the speakers. A noticeable amount of smearing of 3D imaging and soundstage movement was gone, so the timing of notes felt more authentic, and instruments were much easier to place in the soundstage. And I experienced this through literally everything I played through the Plinius Kaitaki preamplifier. It felt as though a layer of fog on the window through which I listened to the music was completely erased. This of course led me to quite a few sessions when I listened to familiar recordings and sat amazed at all the new detail I was hearing.

Using the Plinius Kaitaki with tube amplifiers

After some time listening with a solid-state amp, it was time for some tubes. I used the Plinius Kaitaki with my McIntosh MC30 push-pull tube amps and Spatial Audio M3 Triode Master speakers. This was also a big surprise. Whether with digital or analog sources, I heard more bass, and more bass detail, than I thought possible with these amps and speakers. Over the years I have learned that it’s not always correct to just assume a speaker is incapable of producing particular frequencies well, especially bass. It’s just that the speaker isn’t receiving those particular frequencies available in the recordings from the source components. The musical information is there in the recording, but the preamplifier or amplifier may prevent them from making it to the speakers. So, naturally, if the preamp can’t let those bass frequencies get to the speakers, then the speakers cannot play those bass frequencies. This has been a major eye-opener for me, and the Plinius Kaitaki drove that point home even further. It enabled much more musical information from my sources to make it to the speakers than I’ve ever heard. So now I want better source components that can send more information to the speakers through the Plinius Kaitaki. Such is the way of the journey to superior sound reproduction.

A word about the power cable

After listening to the Plinius Kaitaki with its stock power cable for a few weeks, I figured it was worth listening to it with a higher-quality cable, so I installed a Zu Mission power cable. The improvement was immediately apparent, with an improvement in sound quality across the entire frequency range, in particular with a focus on bass energy and upper ranges. Needless to say, I did not go back to using the stock power cable. I do not hold it against Plinius for including a low-priced power cord with this preamplifier, because, I believe, a person who can pay around $7,000 for a preamplifier either already has a quality power cable on hand or can easily purchase one. So, it is my recommendation to ditch the stock power cable and experiment with higher-quality power cables.

The Plinius Kaitaki enabled me to hear the most lucid, transparent sound I’ve ever experienced in my system. It also made me realize that the rest of my system is capable of a quality of fidelity I didn’t know it was capable of. It is an attractive, solid, and well-built component that’s built to last a very long time. If I could easily afford it, I would buy it without reservation. The Plinius Kaitaki is a preamplifier I will miss quite a bit after I return it.