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Review NaN of
Price Paid:
$300.00
from ebay Summary:
This is a review for the older, UK built Audiolab 8000S which are still widely available on the second hand market and judging by their prices on ebay are still hugely popular. Whether or not you think it wise to fork out as much as GBP300 on an amp that must now be over ten years old is a matter only you can decide. The alternative is the Chinese built version that is available. I have heard this and was reasonably impressed but given that it was in a dem room with speakers I wasn’t familiar with it’s hard to say which is better, or even if they are comparable. There’s a mixture of good and bad points made in the hifi press and on hifi forums. Much is good and that which is negative seems to stem from suspicions of the Chinese build rather than actual experience. I tend to look favourably on the new versions based on what I’ve heard but, in a sense I defaulted to the argument that I would buy them in sequence as it were, coming up from the much loved (or in some quarters hated) 8000A.
The thing with the Audiolab sound, as with a number of other manufacturers with a ‘trademark’ sound, you either love it or you don’t. I have previously owned amps by Marantz, Linn, Cyrus and Arcam and I most certainly wouldn’t swap back as good as they all were for different reasons. I regularly listen to a friends Naim system, a CD5i and Nait 5i, it’s fantastic, it really is. All those five star reviews are well deserved, particularly accurate are those in Hifi World, agree with every word. Would I go and buy my own Naims, well I could afford it, but I’m not going to. I prefer my Audiolab with an Arcam 72. I’m not saying it’s better I’m just saying I prefer it. And what follows in my analysis I hope will explain why.
Build quality is good, the solid unbustable quality you would hope for, no modern day bling here. Only one caveat, as far as I’m concerned; it’s those chunky speaker connections that don’t accept banana plugs in the conventional way. You can use them if you put them in vertically through the holes intended for bare wires. This isn’t really satisfactory since the collars tend to come loose and very quickly compromise sound quality. The only real choice is between bare wire and spade connections.
Six line inputs, three with corresponding outs (tape loops) but no phono. The one unusual feature of this amp is the ‘mode’ facility that enables the amp to be switched, via a control on the front panel, to use as a preamp or power other than the usual integrated status.
So how does it sound? The snappiest description would be to say that this a very sophisticated version of the 8000A. A wide, spacious soundstage that gives clear insight into the recording coupled with extreme detail, noticeably more than the 8000A or any of the other amps I have mentioned in their GBP500 or so guises. For me it brings music alive in a spine tingling way and keeps me up until 3 in the morning. Audiolabs have long suffered a reputation for a sterile sound but I’ve never heard it yet. It won’t suffer a cheap CD player, as with any recording it will tell you just what’s going on though perhaps it’s a little kinder than the A. It doesn’t do rhythm in the way that a Naim will but it doesn’t lack excitement, with the speed and timing ability on offer it can’t fail. I listen to a lot of blues, of every kind, I think I’d notice if it was failing in this department. Tonal quality is another criticism of the Audiolab and I must confess I find this baffling but to be fair I rarely listen to classical music and I know professional reviewers would use acoustic instruments as a gauge of tone and timbre. It might be a weakness but I don’t register a problem listening to acoustic (non-classical) music. It could be that speaker matching has something to do with this too. In my experience the Audiolab is happy with Ruarks, the better Missions, I’m currently using the 751Freedoms. And they’ll happily partner the older Monitor Audios. I sometimes use a pair of Studio 2’s. I’ve not heard it with the newer ones yet.
Its one weakness I feel is a slight lack of depth in the soundstage; probably the only way to ameliorate this is through the upgrade path by adding the 8000P power amp. It does take a long time to get into it’s stride even buying second hand I found this a problem. I can only assume the previous owner had not used it for a while. The moral is turn it on and leave it on! It’ll last longer that way.
All in all the Audiolab 8000S is a superb amp that holds up against more recent competition. I strongly recommend you hear one if you have the chance, if you liked the sound of the 8000A you’ll love it and it has a remote for all of us armchair athletes.
Strengths:
It's fun fun fun. The 8000S loves music Weaknesses:
Speaker connection
Soundstage depth could be deeper
Similar Products Used:
Cyrus, Arcam, Audiolab, Marantz
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