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
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Excellent! I’ve found the marriage of Magnepan and Stellar gear to be incredible.