Siblings in PrimaLuna's EVO range, so they share a design and a house sound. It comes down to power, features and price.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | PrimaLuna EVO 400 Power has more power - 70W against 42W into 8 ohms. That is about 2.2dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate PrimaLuna EVO 300 Integrated the better fit for desk or near-field listening and a small room, and PrimaLuna EVO 400 Power 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. |
| Analogue inputs | A | PrimaLuna EVO 300 Integrated takes more analogue sources - 5 against 1. |
| Headphones | depends | Only PrimaLuna EVO 300 Integrated has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Price | A | PrimaLuna EVO 300 Integrated costs less - $5,495 against $5,995 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | PrimaLuna EVO 400 Power is the cheaper watt - about $86 per watt against $131. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A PrimaLuna EVO 300 Integrated B PrimaLuna EVO 400 Power
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: PrimaLuna EVO 400 Power measures better, PrimaLuna EVO 300 Integrated costs about 8% 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 - PrimaLuna EVO 400 Power has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 42 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 28 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate PrimaLuna EVO 400 Power poorly for near-field use for exactly that reason.
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.