Welcome Audiolab!
Audiolab’s new 6000 Series features a dynamite Integrated Amp, CD Transport & Streamer. The sonic performance matches the brand’s elegant build quality. Available in black or silver, the fit and finish of Audiolab would make you think it’s twice as expensive as it is!
Visit the tab near the bottom of our home page for greater detail. Here’s your appetizer.
6000A Integrated Amp $1000
50×2, 2.6h, 17.5w, 12d
With a muscular 50×2 class AB amp on board, 6000A has a myriad of valuable features. Toroidal Transformer, Excellent 32bit Sabre DAC, MM, 4 high level inputs, pre out (!), Bluetooth.
It’s not quite a Hegel but at half the price, that’s OK!
6000CDT CD Transport $550
2.6h, 17.5w, 12d
This slot loading Red Book CD spinner is built like a tank and spins quiet as a mouse. It eschews standard drawer design to avoid deleterious rattling. Sans DAC on board, CDT is able to provide scant jitter output and send a cleaner sound to your DAC of choice. How about the 6000A integrated above? Or better yet, a Hegel!
6000N Streamer $650
2.6h, 17.5w, 12d
This hi-res streamer works with an Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi. It has the same stellar DAC within that’s built in 6000A above. The N even has six preset buttons for Internet radio- pretty handy & smart!
Hegel Is Awesome!
Hegel H-390
In full figured speakers, it’s really tough to beat Bryston! The A2 in particular at $3810 per pair is one of the best speaker values in our biz.
It delivers subterranean bass with a tuneful quality I love. The top end is smooth. At a middle range price point A2 is impossible to beat.
Also, don’t forget its little brother, A3 $3270 per pair. At just over $3k you get a lot of what A2 can do, but not the quite the devastating bass and SPL capability.
Oh, by the way, on Bryston speakers, some folks have told me they see that these models have gone up in price A LOT over the years. Not really! When the A Series was introduced in about 2014, Bryston made them in a vinyl wrap finish to attain the lowest possible price point. Bryston has since made the right move, says me, and offers the A Series in real wood only. While the prices have gone up a bit, a fair amount of this jump is due to real wood vs laminate. The warranty is still 20 years!
Any speaker can be only as good as what’s AHEAD of it. That is why A2 is lucky to be sitting at Audio Emporium. Of course A2 sounds wonderful on a Bryston preamp (BP-17 $5075 line level with remote) and amp (3B Cubed, 200×2 $5800). All in $11k ish.
However, Hegel allows you to roll in at about half of the price point. H390 is my fave at $6000 (250×2). H-190 is still stellar at $4000 (150×2). Both Hegels have a damping factor of 4000! What are the other guys? Typically 200-400.
Damping factor identifies the amp’s ability to control your speakers. Higher damping means your bass will be taut and not loose. If you like acoustic music, piano, stand up bass and drum kits, there is no substitute for this control. As I play my Baldwin M grand every day, I’m telling you this tighter bass absolutely sounds more like the real instrument than amps that are a bit rumbly or soggy.
The Hegels are a synergy with A2s! It’s a no brainer combination. But there is a wildly different speaker that shows flaws in amplifiers more than perhaps any other. That’s the Klipsch LaScala AL-5 ($12k per pair). This horn based 3-way is 106dB SPL. Yep, it is among the most efficient speakers on the market. It should be great with tubes because it is efficient, right? Uh, not for me!
For openers, the noise floor of almost all tube gear creates a rushing sound through an efficient speaker that DOES get in the way of the music. Hey, if you’re pounding Stevie Ray Vaughn or Kansas, you may never hear the hiss obfuscating the music. But it IS distortion that’s in the road. If you listen to classical piano or chamber music, that hiss is unacceptable. If you love a jazz trio with piano, bass & drums, same problem. I don’t want to listen through hiss. We don’t need to tolerate it today.
I decided to run a couple of the Hegels through the LaScalas and BOY, was I impressed! I wanted music that could actually exist IN YOUR LIVING ROOM. Hence I chose an old as the hills but absolutely lovely recording of Schubert Trios (1966) by the Beaux Arts Trio.
The music is mostly quiet, but at times dynamic, so you have to set your volume to be right for the peaks. What I can tell you is that the Hegels were dead quiet and never got in the road. I can’t say the same for any tube unit I’ve run into LaScalas, or back in the 2000s with the similarly efficient Avantgardes.
When the Avantgardes were in their hey day in the early 2000s, Hegels were a great choice because they were quiet and dynamic. I had some Naim and Linn electronics at the time. They were nowhere near as quiet and were unusable with Avantgarde speakers. Fast forward to 2020 and you’ll hear that Hegel is a joy to use with a tremendously high SPL speaker like Klipsch, or hungrier speakers like the Brystons (87dB).
Running a CD player or streamer into the DAC of a Hegel integrated is a breeze. The Hegel DAC is synchronous. There’s no converting or fiddle fudging tricks to make the sound LESS musical. If you run a good CD player for about a grand into the Hegel analog, and then listen to the music through the DAC section of the Hegel, you’ll hear what I mean in an instant! Hegel provides better dynamic contrast, transient attack and detail up and down the range. Through Hegels, the LaScala provides a very quiet background from which the music can dance and FLOAT.
To hear the dynamic nature of a single bow stroke through this combo is breath taking. I’m not saying other electronics and tubes are no good. I’m saying Hegel allows us to hear all LaScala does well, which is mostly to present dynamic contrast- in realistic doses because it stays outta the way! The violin, cello and piano just appear out of a black background because there is no electronic hiss or rush to intrude on the music. With pure black background, all the musical colors snap to attention.
When you use most any other electronics you imbue the music with a softer sound with endemic signature. Not for me.
Visit the Hegel tab at the bottom of our home page to see the lineup. What I want to brag up here, is that with extra time on my hands (ugh) I’ve come to appreciate Hegel even more than before!
How Magnepan Came To Be
Magnepan’s creator, Jim Winey worked for 3M in the 60s. He had home brewed an electrostatic speaker in 1966 and decided the sound was clear, but too puny. By 1969 Jim had developed the Magnepan principle. 3M said, even though you did this on your own time, you work for us, this design is OURS. Jim quit on June 28, 1969 to embark on Magnepan. After generating loans from friends and relatives, Jim started out making speakers which were marketed through ARC for 7 years. By then the bank account was strong and Jim went his own way and never looked back!