Colorado’s PS AUDIO improves on the STELLAR STRATA. The MK2 is here: bigger, better and lots of new features.
Dear reader, a piece of news that has its origin in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, where the passionate team of PS Audio has its headquarters and dream jobs. The novelty is a reiteration of their already good and successful integrated amplifier, The Stellar Strata, now in its new MK2 version.
The MK2 includes a moving coil and moving magnet phono stage, a more powerful amplifier stage, a Class A headphone amplifier and an integrated DAC. The previous Strata did not have any phono stage, and its DAC was just basic.
The new DAC in the MK2 utilizes PS Audio’s proprietary Digital Lens technology, all digital signals being stripped down by this Digital Lens technology which recognizes the sample rate, re-clocks the data, thus reducing jitter. The DAC can go up to 384kHz, with native DSD capabilities up to DSD256. Also, a very big improvement from the first iteration of the Strata is the I2S digital interface that PS Audio seems to prefer over anything else when comes to digital transport. The Stellar Strata MK2 has two I2S inputs. That’s something!
The phono stage comes with both moving magnet and moving coil options. There are also two line-level inputs both in RCA and XLR, the Strata MK2 having a fully balanced Class A preamplifier circuitry. The output stage of the amplifier is built with hybrid Class D technology, delivering 150W of power in 4OHM.
The Strata MK2 will be available for $3500 retail price. I must say that at this price point and with all these great features included, this is a very nice package that includes PS Audio’s great technologies – GainCell preamplifier, phono stage, Digital Lens technology together with I2S connectivity and, of course, last but not least, its fully balanced design. I can hardly wait to put my hands on one of these!
