Streamers — Atoll Electronique ST300 Signature

The ST300 Signature combines a network streamer, a DAC and a preamplifier in one case, and it comes from Atoll Electronique, the French company founded in 1997 by the brothers Stéphane and Emmanuel Dubreuil in Brécey, Normandy, where its products are designed and built. It belongs to the Signature line, and it can work either as a pure source or as a preamplifier feeding a power amplifier with no other unit in between.

Key specs that matter

Two Burr-Brown PCM1792A converters are used, one per channel, with a dynamic range and signal to noise ratio of 132 dB each and THD of 0.0004% at 1 kHz. A Cirrus Logic CS8418 receiver handles the digital inputs up to 192 kHz. PCM is accepted up to 24 bit and 192 kHz and DSD as DSD64 and DSD128, with MQA, DSF, FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, WAV, WMA, OGG, AAC and MP3 files supported. Frequency response is 5 Hz to 20 kHz, output impedance is 5.6 ohm and output level is 2.0 V RMS. Inputs are two RCA line inputs, two coaxial, two optical, Bluetooth, two USB-A ports and Ethernet, with Wi-Fi. Outputs are RCA, XLR, coaxial, optical and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The unit measures 440 x 284 x 95 mm and weighs 7 kg.

Engineering and use context

The analogue output uses four discrete stages running in Class A without feedback. A switched-resistor network sets the volume without converting it to digital, and the control can be bypassed when the ST300 feeds an integrated amplifier. The power supply combines a 30 VA linear transformer with two 10 VA low-noise toroidal transformers for the audio circuits, with 69,000 µF of filter capacitance in total, so the audio stages do not share a supply with the digital and network sections. Streaming in the ATOLL Signature 2 app covers Qobuz, TIDAL, Deezer, Amazon Music and HighResAudio, and the unit also supports Spotify, TIDAL and Qobuz Connect, AirPlay 2, Roon Ready, Audirvana and JPlay. Internet radio comes through Airable with about 100,000 stations, and podcasts, playlists and gapless playback are included. USB drives formatted as FAT32, NTFS or EXT2 to EXT4 can be read. A 5 inch colour TFT display with 800 x 480 pixels sits in an 8 mm brushed aluminium front, in black or silver, and a remote is supplied. The warranty runs for two years.

Pairing

With its volume control active, the ST300 connects straight to a power amplifier such as the Atoll AM300 Evo through RCA or XLR. With the control bypassed, it can be connected to an integrated amplifier's line input, and the analogue inputs let a phono stage or tuner pass through it.

Alternatives

The Atoll ST200 Signature is the step-down streamer in the same line, with separate supplies for the audio stages and the DAC.