At AXPONA 2025 (Audio Expo North America), PS Audio lifted the curtain on its all-new PMG Signature Series, marking a bold leap forward in ultra high-end audio performance. The lineup includes the PMG Signature 512 DAC, 512 Preamplifier, Signature Phono Preamplifier, and SACD Transport — each featuring a completely redesigned chassis and internally overhauled architecture. Each component is priced at $8,499.
Engineered from the ground up, these components deliver a significant performance upgrade over the outgoing PerfectWave DirectStream series, which they now officially replace.
Let’s take a brief look at what each new component has to offer.
PMG Signature 512 Preamplifier
PS Audio unveils its new flagship preamp, a masterful creation by Darren Myers that marks a significant milestone for the brand. For the first time in 50 years, the preamp carries the esteemed name of founder Paul McGowan, symbolizing a return to the company’s roots and commitment to the highest level of audio excellence.
The 512 Preamplifier is fully balanced from input to output, boasting an ultra-low noise and distortion floor of 150dB. It reveals music with exceptional dynamics, depth, and holographic imaging. A new power supply replaces traditional electrolytic capacitors with high-quality film capacitors, delivering faster transients, deeper silence, and greater dynamic range. The preamp circuitry is housed in a double-chassis design, providing superior shielding from noise and interference.
The PMG Signature 512 Preamplifier features a new gain stage that combines FET and BJT technologies. This design merges the subtlety and linearity of FETs with the dynamic control and drive of BJTs. Fully complementary from input to output, the gain stage operates in pure Class A, direct-coupled, and servo-controlled to maintain signal integrity.
What sets this stage apart is its innovative take on folded cascode topology. Traditional cascodes use stacked transistors to improve gain and bandwidth, but the folded version “bends” the signal path, allowing high voltage swings, low noise, and wide bandwidth without the instability or harshness of conventional designs.
PMG Signature 512 DAC
The PMG Signature 512 DAC features a PureStream DSD512 engine, capable of converting any form of digital audio into an 8X-DSD stream—without PCM, decimation, or compromise. The stream is processed by the SpectraWave 64-tap sequencer, a digital filter designed to reduce noise and distortion while ensuring precise time alignment.
From there, the signal flows into a state-of-the-art, direct-coupled analog output stage. With an integrated high-end streamer for seamless music access, the 512 represents PS Audio’s most advanced DAC to date.
This is a departure not only from traditional PCM-based architecture but also from conventional DSD implementation. The PMG Signature 512 also features PS Audio’s Digital Lens technology. This ensures that incoming digital data is reorganized and re-clocked before reaching the PureStream engine.
With a fully balanced, direct-coupled analog output stage, galvanically isolated inputs, an integrated high-performance streamer, and precision analog volume control, the PMG 512 is more than just a DAC.
PMG Signature Phono Preamplifier
The PMG Signature Phono Preamplifier is designed by PS Audio engineer Darren Myers. It features a transimpedance input and zero-feedback topology that minimizes distortion, coloration, and noise. With inputs for both moving coil and moving magnet cartridges and remote-controlled loading and gain options, the PMG Signature Phono Preamplifier is able to adapt to any system. Its discrete FET design delivers impressive headroom, ultra-low noise, and wide dynamics.
The Signature Phono Preamp eliminates op-amps and integrated circuits in the signal path, using hand-selected discrete FETs and BJTs in Class A mode. Its complementary, direct-coupled topology prioritizes low distortion, high resolution, and transparency. The result is exceptional headroom, ultra-low noise, and fast transient response, capturing delicate nuances and wide dynamics effortlessly.
The transimpedance input provides cartridges with a direct, uncolored path to amplification, eliminating loading issues and revealing details, texture, and space that conventional designs often miss. For a more traditional approach, the voltage input offers adjustable gain and loading, all remotely controlled.
The PMG Signature Phono Preamplifier is designed to eliminate global feedback. Using high-voltage FETs and hand-selected bipolar transistors in a complementary topology, designer Darren Myers achieved a true zero-feedback phono stage with vanishingly low noise and distortion
PMG Signature SACD Transport
The PMG Signature SACD Transport reveals the hidden magic of pure DSD locked away in your SACDs, connecting your DAC to unprecedented detail. PS Audio claims it’s their finest optical disc transport in 43 years, designed to extract every nuance from both CDs and SACDs.
With galvanically isolated outputs and an ultra-low jitter design, the Signature SACD Transport enhances CD playback when paired with any DAC. Connected via I²S, it unlocks the raw DSD layer of SACDs, offering a level of detail previously inaccessible to external DACs.
A technical first, this transport features a galvanically isolated output stage, ensuring any noise or ground contamination is eliminated by coupling the drive mechanism’s output to the PMG’s internal Digital Lens. The result is enhanced image separation, openness, and effortless reproduction, revealing musical details once buried beneath noise and jitter.
The Bottom Line
The PMG Signature series represents the pinnacle of PS Audio’s craftsmanship, offering unparalleled performance with advanced technologies, precise engineering, and a commitment to detail. However, at $8,500 per component, it’s an investment that only the most dedicated audiophiles (with huge bank accounts) will consider—those who demand nothing less than the absolute best in sound reproduction.
Price & Availability
The PS Audio PMG Series components are available in black or silver through PS Audio directly or at Authorized Dealers.
- PMG Signature 512 DAC: $8,499
- 512 Preamplifier: $8,499
- Signature Phono Preamplifier: $8,499
- SACD Transport: $8,499
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Anton D’Agostino
April 16, 2025 at 6:16 pm
PS Audio makes consistently good audio equipment so I suspect this stuff is probably worth a listen. My issue is the kinda odd styling and $34K price tag for the complete system.
Not inexpensive. Granted, other “flagship” components can be $34K on their own, so perhaps this isn’t insane by high end standards.
Tony Abbott
April 17, 2025 at 2:04 am
I really wish PS AUDIO spoils consider making a multi channel processor/preamp for those of us who two channel, but also have a room for watching Blu Ray concerts and movies with at least 7.2 .