One is a streaming all-in-one and the other is an amplifier. Judge them on how many boxes you want and what you already own, not on the spec sheet alone.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | SVS Prime SoundBase has more power - 75W against 50W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.8dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate PS Audio Sprout100 the better fit for desk or near-field listening and a small room, and SVS Prime SoundBase for a mid-size room, a large room and a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output nearly doubles (100W and 150W). |
| Noise floor | A | PS Audio Sprout100 is the quieter design on paper - 100dB against 90dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board. PS Audio Sprout100 goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Streaming | B | Only SVS Prime SoundBase has AirPlay 2, Chromecast and DTS Play-Fi. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (2). |
| Phono stage | depends | PS Audio Sprout100 has a built-in phono stage (MM) and SVS Prime SoundBase does not. Decisive if you own a turntable, completely irrelevant if you do not - and an outboard phono stage is easy to add later either way. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Shelf space | depends | PS Audio Sprout100 takes up about 36% less shelf area (329cm² against 517cm²). |
| Price | B | SVS Prime SoundBase costs less - $699 against $799 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | SVS Prime SoundBase is the cheaper watt - about $9 per watt against $16. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A PS Audio Sprout100 B SVS Prime SoundBase
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
SVS Prime SoundBase has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. If you play records, PS Audio Sprout100 saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.