Atoll AM300, $3900

150×2 stereo or 500w Monoblock

Atoll designs and builds its products, in its own house in France, with a 3 year warranty. They actually populate their own PCBs and do the real work of manufacturing in house.

Atoll’s circuit boards are a work of art. There’s a small amount of wire from the transformers to the PCB and THAT’S IT. Atoll’s parts on the board are through hole, not surface mount. They sound better and last much longer. Look at virtually any competitor and you’ll see spaghetti running all over. As that dental floss sized wire is routed next to, and even over/around components within the amp, it generates hum and noise. Atoll gear has a dead black background so you can hear the fine details within music.

Atoll’s amps are Class AB. They run about 15% in the A domain. Atoll amps deliver a warm, MUSCULAR sound with a solid bass kick. When you compare Atoll to most anything else, especially the Class Ds and D derivatives, Atoll hits like George Foreman.

AM300 is a GREAT stereo power amp! We have to look beyond the specs to appreciate how good it is.

Any fine amp starts with its transformer. Or in the case of AM300 (as well as AM100 & AM200)- it runs a PAIR of 440VA toroidal transformers- not a single. Atoll designed its transformers and has them built in Spain to its specs. The transformers have a steel case and resin to absorb any tendency to ring.

Atoll uses fast ESR filter capacitors, which it has built for them in Japan, not China. Atoll runs a generous allotment, 86,400uF, to provide a stiff power supply in AM300.

AM300 uses a dozen MATCHED MOSFET output transistors. Atoll has developed its own, in house procedure, to test transistors. Every transistor that comes in house is tested and placed in bins of like fingerprints. The amp YOU get will be sure to have transistors that behave within a very tight window. If the transistors are NOT matched, you get transistor performance all over the board- yielding grainy sounding artifacts due to the DIFFERENCES among their characteristics. It takes a procedure Atoll has developed, PLUS time and effort- all of which costs money. The other guys… just take transistors out of the box and use them without regard to their mismatched performance.

AM300 is not only smooth, it packs a sledgehammer in its back pocket. If the music asks for it, you’ll be amazed how AM300 can get the dust off your speaker cones. AM300 can control big boy speakers like Brystons, Maggies and stats. If you want to have TOO much fun, buy a second one and run bridged, 500 watt MonoBlocks- WOW!

AM300 is balanced and is a perfect stable mate for its new PR300 preamp! AM300 is also quiet enough to use with Klipsch Heritage horn models of high efficiency. It’s a tough ask- to be quiet enough for Ks and yet be tough enough for Pans and Brystons. AM300 does it all.