Предусилители — Audiolab 9000Q

The 9000Q is the preamplifier of the Audiolab 9000 Series, announced in November 2024 together with the 9000P stereo power amplifier and shipped from December in silver or black. It cost GBP 1,499 alone or GBP 2,499 with the 9000P, and USD 2,699 in North America. Jan Ertner led the engineering, and besides the line stage the chassis holds a converter, an MM phono section and a headphone amplifier.

Key specs that matter

Analogue inputs are three RCA line pairs, one balanced XLR pair and one MM phono pair. On the digital side there are four S/PDIF inputs, half coaxial and half optical, running at up to 24-bit/192 kHz plus a USB Type-B port accepting PCM up to 768 kHz and DSD512, and Bluetooth 5.1 carries aptX, aptX HD and LDAC. Outputs comprise two variable RCA pairs, one variable XLR pair, a fixed-level RCA output that bypasses the volume control, a front headphone socket and two 12 V triggers. Sensitivity at 0 dB volume is 1 Vrms for RCA, 2 Vrms for XLR and 4.5 mV for phono, and output impedance is 120 ohm. Distortion stays below 0.001 % at 1 kHz and 0 dBFS, response runs from 20 Hz to 20 kHz within 0.1 dB, and A-weighted signal-to-noise exceeds 113 dB through RCA and 117 dB through XLR direct. The headphone output has 2.35 ohm source impedance, accepts loads from 20 to 600 ohm and holds distortion under 0.01 % at 50 mW. The case is 444 x 90 x 328 mm and weighs 6.2 kg net or 8 kg packed.

Engineering and use context

The ES9038PRO is an eight-channel converter chip, and Audiolab runs all eight channels to build a balanced stereo signal, followed by a Class A post-DAC active filter. Each DAC channel, left and right, gets its own discrete regulators. A low-noise 40 VA toroidal transformer feeds 11 regulated rails. Volume is set by a microprocessor but the attenuation itself stays in the analogue domain. Bass and treble adjust by plus or minus 6 dB in 2 dB steps, can be assigned per input and can be taken out of the path altogether. The single-stage Class A phono circuit handles MM cartridges only, as the company chose not to add moving coil support. An AV Direct mode on AUX 3 passes a line input at fixed gain for use with an AV processor, and the XLR input can use a direct balanced route. The 4.3-inch 800 x 480 IPS panel shows volume, input and format data or a VU-style meter and can be dimmed or blanked.

Pairing

The 9000P is its matching stereo power amplifier and can be switched on through a trigger link. Other stereo or mono power amps connect through the XLR or RCA outputs, and the 9000CDT transport connects to one of the coaxial or optical inputs.

Alternatives

The Audiolab 8200Q is an earlier stereo preamplifier from the 8200 Series, built without a DAC and specified at 0.0025 % distortion.