Worth an update, 6 months in on the S300 and a friend of mine returned a pair of Magnepan MG 10.1s i had loaned him years ago. I thought an interesting listen might be the DIrectStream>BHKPre>S300>Magnepan10.1, so we pulled the cables and sat down for a listen, now bear in mind the Magnepan is a small quasi-ribbon design from 1998, standing 53"x10" and the Vandersteen sub originally paired with, long gone, so no sub. The S300 had been powering a pair of in-ceiling Linn’s so this was really the first listen and with a speaker I had known and loved from 1998-2010, a bit like your old dog comes back to life with the energy of a puppy… and really, I hadn’t given the S300 the credit it deserves. These Magnepan’s are directional and somewhat omni-directional creating a deep soundstage with laser focus when toe’d in for nearfield. The S300 gave the spacious soundstage a magnification of detail that is very immersive for long listening. It did reveal lesser recordings, but with well recorded Pat Barber, it really conveyed a stage of studio air and expressive details looking into the recording. Impressive, preaching to the choir here, but, anyone contemplating an S300, don’t hesitate. Cheers mates
Excellent! I’ve found the marriage of Magnepan and Stellar gear to be incredible.