A valve amplifier against a solid-state one. They are not really rivals: they differ in character, in what they will drive and in what owning them involves, so start there rather than with the watts.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | PS Audio Stellar M1200 has more power - 600W against 350W into 8 ohms. That is about 2.3dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output nearly doubles (700W and 1200W). |
| Noise floor | B | PS Audio Stellar M1200 is the quieter design on paper - 112dB against 105dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (1). |
| Amplifier type | depends | PS Audio Stellar M700 is Solid State and PS Audio Stellar M1200 is Hybrid. Valve designs are usually warmer and softer at the limits and need their tubes replaced eventually; solid state is the lower-maintenance choice. This is a taste and ownership decision, not a quality one. |
| Price | A | PS Audio Stellar M700 costs less - $1,749 against $3,499 at list. |
A PS Audio Stellar M700 B PS Audio Stellar M1200
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?
The usual trade-off: PS Audio Stellar M1200 measures better, PS Audio Stellar M700 costs about 50% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here. Start with the room. In a large or open-plan room, or with speakers that are hard to drive - low sensitivity, or an impedance that dips - PS Audio Stellar M1200 has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 350 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 250 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate PS Audio Stellar M1200 poorly for near-field use for exactly that reason. Think about the whole system: the roughly $1,750 saved by taking the cheaper one would buy better speakers or a subwoofer, which does more for the sound than the difference between two competent amplifiers.
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.