Below: The 9000A iswelstocked with an aray ofanalogue and digitalconnection options.
doesnotinclude built-in network stream ing.From aperform ancepointofview,incorporating network stream ing ofsuficientquality to m atch the am p’s sonicam bition within the sam e chas iswould have m eantcom prom ising perform ance in otherareas– the 9000A is, first and foremost, a high-perform ance integrated am plifier. Also, not everyone requires network streaming; by developing a separate,dedicated audio stream er forthe 9000 Series – setto arive in early 2023 – Audiolab is able to deliver optim alperform ance and system flexibilty. D igitalcircuitry Ever since the m uch-adm ired M -DAC launched m orethanadecadeago,Audiolab hasbeenfam ed for the perform ance of its DAC circuitry. The M -DAC was one of the first consum er audio products in the world to use ESS Technology’s groundbreaking Sabre32 Reference DAC chips, sharing itsuse ofthe ES9018 chip fam ilywith other renowned Audiolab components such as the 8200CD,8300CD and 6000A.Audiolab switched up to a new-generation 32-bit Sabre chip – the ES9038Q 2M –foritsrecentlylaunched O m nia‘just add speakers’stream ing system ,and hasraised the baragain foritsnew flagship am plifier.
eight-channel DAC chip that represents the pinnacle ofESS Technology’scurentSabre range. This is ac om panied by proprietary circuitry to m ake the m ost of the chip’s HyperStream I architecture and Tim e Dom ain Jiter Elim inator technologyforunprecedented dynam icrange and ultra-lo w d isto rtio n. No com panyknowsm ore aboutm aking the m ost ofSabre DAC technology than Audiolab,having worked with itforyears through severalproduct generations.Although alwaystechnicalyexcelent, theseDAC chipsarealso chalenging to im plem ent to m axim um efectand m ustbe integrated into a product’scircuitdesign with care to extracttheirful sonic potential. The post-DAC active filter is a criticalelem entand Audiolab hasdeveloped anew circuitthatisperfectlytailored to m ake the m ostof the ES9038PRO . The9000A’shi-resaudio supportisstate-of-the-art, handling PCM to 32-bit/768kHz and DSD to 22.5M Hz (DSD512). Every significant hi-res and los les audio form at is catered for, including FLAC,ALAC,AIFFandW AV,aswelascom pres ed legacyform ats. The 9000A also deliversfuldecoding ofM Q A,the hi-res stream ing technology.This m eans thatthe com plete ‘three unfold’ decoding proces is
The 9000A incorporates the ES9038PRO – an
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