PS Audio Stellar S300 Amplifier

• The Analog Cell

The connection between preamplifier and power amplifier is critical, for it is at this junction where most essential musical details are easily lost. Nothing in the design of a power amplifier is more important than its input stage when preserving music’s finest nuances. In the S300, a unique topology, called the Analog Cell, has been employed to preserve the rich details found in music. The Analog Cell is the heart of the S300’s musicality, where rich overlaid layers of music’s inner details are preserved even in the most complex orchestral crescendos. The Analog Cell is a proprietary, fully differential, zero feedback, discrete, Class A MOSFET circuit, hand-tuned to capture the smallest micro dynamics without sacrificing the loudest macro dynamics music has to offer. The Analog Cell makes all the difference.

• The Output Stage

The Stellar S300 is a dual mono design. This means that each channel has its own, separate power supply. Each of the two channels is a complete and independent power supply and power amplification stage, based on a modern Class D ICE module, designed in Denmark. Class D output stages provide near-perfect linearity, low distortion, and high efficiency. Because Class D amplifiers require an output filter to remove their switching noise, they do not have frequency extremes into the many hundreds of thousands of Hertz. Depending on their design, modern Class D amplifiers, like the type used in Stellar, extend high frequencies to about 50kHz. Human hearing limitations are 20kHz, though most listeners rarely have hearing exceeding half that. The S300 provides excellent frequency extremes, low distortion, high efficiency, high damping factor, and a powerful output of 300 watts per channel into the most common loudspeaker loads of 4Ω.