...the Sprout100 / ELAC Debut 2.0 system is in every respect a winner. While you won’t get everything, where would you put it (thanks, Steven Wright), what you will get is a hifi capable of mating you to your music in meaningful ways. I also find the Sprout to be one heck of a nice looking piece of kit, better looking in fact than the endless parade of black metal box w/silver faceplate clones. Sprout has character, and wood! What more can you ask?
Based on my experience, if you decide to buy the PS Audio Sprout100 and the ELAC Debut 2.0 speakers, I can safely extrapolate from that...
READ MORETwittering Machines
Michael Lavorgna
The detail and depth are just striking. It’s still the channel separation and imaging that is grabbing me hardest...I’ve never had this disc startle me. I turned around because one of the voices came from behind me. This is two channel that I’m listening to. The Sprout has opened up the soundstage so wide that it played a ventriloquist act. I’ve never had a piece of gear do that in this room. The second track sounds like a drum circle in the room.
This isn’t about specs and numbers, this purely about the presentation of music, and this is happening in front of me in breathtaking fashion…
READ MOREThe Shoestring Audiophile
Michael Laurance
I had some reservations about the original Sprout due to its always-on loudness curve and lower-than-I-usually-need power output capabilities. The new Sprout100 eliminates both of those concerns. Not only does it sound amazingly good, but it has enough of the right inputs and outputs to put together a first-rate, borderline drop-dead kick-ass desktop or even room-based audio system.
The bottom-line question, of course, is whether or not the PS Audio Sprout100 is a good value.
In that regard, I say yes. Hell, yes.
READ MOREHome Theater Review
Steven Stone
A Sprout, you say? Indeed, I’m speaking of PS Audio’s gateway drug into high-end audio, the venerable Sprout integrated amplifier/DAC/phono preamp. It seems that receipt of a Sprout has become something of a coming of age moment in my family. My daughter got the first generation sample I reviewed when she was a junior in college, having moved out of the dorms and into a place of her own with a bunch of other collegiate ladies.
…Ultimately, as with the original Sprout, I had to conclude that one of the best attributes of the Sprout 100 is that it serves to bring generations of people...
READ MOREParttime Audiophile
John Richardson
I pulled out about $6,000 worth of amp and preamp and stuck the $599 Sprout between a pair of Legacy Classic speakers on the output side and about $12,000 worth of MC cartridge, tonearm, turntable, phono cable and phono stage on the input side of the Sprout using the analog input. Not a fair test at all. I was setting up the Sprout to fail. It was surprising easy to listen to. Very non-fatiguing. Not grainy or crappy at all. This $600 unit held its own.
This is the new vintage integrated amp. And with Bluetooth and all those other features this could be the entry level integrated that you...
READ MORERecord Collector
Jim Kaplan
The Sprout100 ticks all the boxes and then some. It poses a headscratcher of a question itself: What does it not do for $599? And as you can see from the specs listed below, "not much" is the answer. How one judges PS Audio’s latest incarnation is a matter of perspective, so I’m going to look at it as the core of 3 systems: starter, office, and travel. Normally, specifications find themselves at the end of a piece, but the Sprout100 is nothing short of extraordinary for the price.
READ MOREDagogo
David Blumenstein
I began this review by stating that PS Audio was once considered the poor man’s budget audiophile gear, and the PS Audio Sprout100 continues that tradition without reservation. Providing a large soundstage with excellent dynamics, a great tonal balance and musicality sufficient to tame the occasionally edgy SABRE DAC chip, while able to drive anything from the most sensitive of IEMs to reference quality planar magnetics, the Sprout100 has earned a place as one of my three favorite DAC/Headphone Amplifiers under $1,000, and is only bested by the Modwright/Oppo DAC, as an ESS based DAC.
The...
READ MOREHeadphone Guru
Gary Allen Barker
...to see how the Sprout100 can handle these very serious speakers that cost $15K per pair, with a frequency response down to 29 Hz. We jumped right to it and played Bela Fleck’s classic cut Flight of the Cosmic Hippo. The Sprout100 drove them well, displaying more depth, more bass, more presence and shaking my couch. Of course they did not yield the sound quality that the Celesta shows off with when paired with my 700 W per channel reference mono blocks, and peripheral reference equipment—but confirming that a $599 Sprout100 can drive these speakers was a revelation.
At the mere price of...
READ MOREAudiophilia
Karl Sigman
I watched a few episodes of Handmaid's Tale Season 2 on Hulu with the Sprout 100 and the LS50s, and the sound was so good I didn't miss a center channel speaker (in part because I was sitting equidistant from the left and right speakers). Stereo imaging was broad and sharply focused in ways you'll never hear from a sound bar.
So yes, the PS Audio Sprout 100 is an overachiever, just pair it with a good set of speakers and you'll be good to go.
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Steve Guttenberg
PS Audio knows the importance of maintaining tonal integrity and placing musicality above all else. No matter how smartly engineered, elegant, or expensive a piece of gear is…it’s fruitless if it ignores these key ingredients. These qualities are what makes something captivating and keeps you in your seat.
It’s obvious a lot of thought, passion, and heart went into the design of the Sprout100. It has been beautifully voiced by some hardcore music lovers. At only $599 (which is cheaper than my USB cable) I consider the Sprout100 to be one of the best-kept secrets in audio. One of those rare...
READ MOREAudio Bacon
Jay Luong
