Owner of IN300 here. I used to have Marantz PM7005 and needed some time to get used to the IN300. The Marantz was somehow brighter but with thinner sound compared to the IN300 which has darker and more full heavy sound. It has an excellent and very open soundstage. Somehow I get the feeling that it lacks some dynamic and attack cuz I mostly listen to metal music but this could due to the speakers that is driving (Focal Aria 906) I have read that Atoll is getting along with Dynaudio much better. But overall I think that the IN300 Is a really good amp. Hope that answers you questions and if you have some more hit me up
I did get one on a home trial and I have to say they're brilliant amps, they should be on any comparison list for someone looking at this price range ..... BUT for me
My only reason for looking to possibly change, I have an Arcam SA30 and play a lot of very low volume listening which I appreciate is never great on any system.
I'd read that amps wih higher current deal with it better and with the IN300's Dual Mono setup thought it'd be improve it but it didn't make a big difference in ultra low level listening situations.
Other comments about the IN300 compared to my SA30 as it's the only other higher end amp I've owned .... the first thing I noticed was how seperated the L/R channels were (I believe this is one of the appeals of Dual Mono / Monoblock set ups) ...
Whilst the seperation was amazing, in my room the speakers are way too far apart from ideal and it was almost a little disconcerting and seemed to leave a big gap in the middle of nothing and felt a tad unnatural ... I hasten to add though, this wouldn't be there if they were better placed and in which case I can see would be incredible to have a greater / more precise weighting of where the instruments are and the breadth of soundstage is huge.
Where it excelled ... if I read a description of rich / warm sounding I instantly think muddy ... I don't quite know how to put this into words and whilst it has those qualities in spades - there is absolutely no muddiness what so ever ... the clarity / seperation is unbelievable with a depth and warmth that just draws you in.
Every single note is very detailed / precise and controlled .... this is again where I come back to my placement issue but also a smidge of personal preference.
My current amp in comparison, whilst it controls say bass incredibly well, there's a smidge more bleed / overrun which fills in the gap between the speakers and reaches up towards the vocals more ... which are also projected lower so it's overall a "fuller" (mainly noticed at lower volumes) but not as tight a sound.
For me in my personal circumstances would I change, I'd probably only get £600/700 2nd hand for the SA30 and the cost of IN300 is a big gap to fill, if it resolved my low listening issue ... yes.
I has made me realise though the SA 30 is no slouch .... in fact probably an incredible amp for it's cost.
If however I didn't own the SA30, I was in a dealers back to backing both tomorrow and could place my speakers closer together, the Atoll would be £600 more than the original price of the Arcam .... I'm pretty sure I would have gone home with the Atoll, despite the additional cost.
Anybody looking in the £3k price range, I would very highly recommend putting one of these on your demo list, if you're anywhere in Surrey / Sussex I'd suggest looking up Richard at Audiologica .. a lovely guy who doesn't try and sell it to you, I felt so guilty taking it back to him, he'll be my 1st point of call when I do chnge / upgrade anything.
A big thank you to everyone for their input and hopefully others come acoss this in searches as there's so little information on these amps.
