If anyone switches from m1200s to the S200, I’d much appreciate your thoughts on the change. I currently have m1200s, Stellar Gold Pre, Airlens, and DSD Mk2 feeding FR 10s and am about to enter an upgrade cycle to PMG series components. My listening room is about 14x12 (non-square), mostly jazz, and not extreme volumes. Thanks much!
My thought is that is a good plan if you will be keeping the FR 10s. If you plan to go to much bigger and/or more difficult to drive speakers you may want to anticipate needing a little more power depending on the needs of those future speakers. The S200 is rated at 100 watts into 8 ohm speakers and 10 watts of class A.
I would highly recommend the PMG Preamp First then PMG Dac then the Amp. Changing preamp; and dac made a major difference in sound quality from BHK MK2 and Preamp. .
Thanks! I may go big and try all three at once so I can swap different bits in and out to hear the changes from various combinations. When I auditioned the BHK pre and Stellar Gold pre, to my surprise I preferred the sound of the SG pre.
If you listen to the PMG stack I highly doubt you will return any of them as they are voiced to work perfectly together, end game purchase. Just make sure you give them break in time but should hear major improvement from first listen.
I asked a question about which PMG amp I should consider in another thread. The S200 would be a good choice for my current 93 db 4 ohm speakers, but was concerned it may not be powerful enough down the road if my next pair of speakers were more demanding.
This response was helpful:
post by JKWAustin 4 days ago
I hope Chris B will way in on this but here is my take. The S200 has more than enough max power to drive just about anything reasonable. Why to we chase after high power amps? Headroom, the theory being that the further we are from max output demand, the better the amp will behave. But that really comes down to the design of the amp. As Paul frequently says, we are listening to the power supply, the function of the rest of the circuit is “simply” to modulate that supply with the undulations of the music. The PMG amps have a radically different power supply than what PS Audio has used in the past. Sure wish I could find Chris B.'s comment on the S200 being the sweet spot but as I recall it was in relation to driving the FR20’s. If its good enough for the guy that poured his heart and soul into the FR series, its good enough for me.
I agree with msaladino22 as I too would get the preamp first followed by the DAC & then the amp. Even if you can afford to purchase all 3 at the same time , I would go a month or longer between purchases so that you can learn what each piece does for your system.
Here’s what Chris said, which is why I’m considering the S200. It was about whether it has enough power to drive reasonably efficient @ 88db / 4ohm speakers (floor standing Sonus Faber Sonnetto III G2) in a small/medium room:
“i am afraid that the S400 is going to sell the most of any of the products but is actually has most compromises of the four designs (trying to pack in twice as much “stuff” in the same chassis and heatsink). It really should be the one we sell the least of but we have kind of trained people that they need more power then they actually do by making our best sounding amps the more/most powerful ones in the past.
My personal advice - though just an opinion like anyone else’s - is that you will be 100% happy with an S200 and, if you ever move to a large space and need to drive more demanding speakers, it will likely still be great but you can also choose trade it in on a pair of monos down the road.”