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 | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 90W against 100W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Yamaha A-S2200 the better fit for a small room, and Primare I25 Prisma for 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 | B | Primare I25 Prisma holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 200W, where the other increases strongly. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | A | Yamaha A-S2200 is the quieter design on paper - 110dB against 100dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Primare I25 Prisma has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Streaming | B | Only Primare I25 Prisma has AirPlay 2, Chromecast and Roon. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (5). |
| Phono stage | depends | Yamaha A-S2200 has a built-in phono stage (MM,MC) and Primare I25 Prisma 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. |
| Headphones | depends | Only Yamaha A-S2200 has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Yamaha A-S2200 is Class A/B and Primare I25 Prisma is Class D. Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice; Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Price | evenly matched | Priced within a few per cent of each other. |
A Yamaha A-S2200 B Primare I25 Prisma
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?
Primare I25 Prisma has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Primare I25 Prisma is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. If you play records, Yamaha A-S2200 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 interface feels 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.