Anybody heard the new Audiolab 9000CDT yet?


Couldn't find any reviews of this yet, so was wondering if any of you had heard it. Quite new, so maybe patience is required. Apart from the 9000's USB input for playing digital files, I'm particularly interested to hear how/if its sound differs from the 6000CDT, which I once owned but couldn't seem to fall in love with. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

cooper52

Showing 3 responses by cooper52

Fastcat95, my impression of the 6000CDT was that, while it was impressively detailed and spacious, it seemed too thin and clinical. It leeched out the actual music in favor of its component events. It didn't render low frequencies with enough authority compared to the Cambridge Audio CXU (universal disc-player) that I was comparing it to. To be fair, the CXU is not the final word in disc-spinners, but in my configuration, using it as a transport connected to the DAC I was using then, an Abbingdon Music Research DP777, it performs very well indeed. I've since replaced that DAC with a Sonnet Morpheus which is very similar in its presentation, just a bit more (for lack of a better word) analog sounding. 

Some second thoughts: It could be that I never gave the 6000CDT enough time to find its true voice, as I bought it new and maybe didn't put enough hours on it before deciding that it wasn't for me. 

And now, just to make things that much more interesting, there's the Schiit Urd to throw into the mix. The Audiolab 9000CDT and the Schiit Urd have features that won't be that useful for me, but they both seem to elevate CD playback significantly. Making the choice will require some real thought, but right now I'm leaning towards the Urd because it can output via AES/EBU, which is the only unoccupied input in my DAC (Sonnet Morpheus). I see I posted my original inquiry way back in January. Things move slowly here...

Might not be clear from my original post and the follow-up, but the 6000CDT was running through the AMR DAC, so I could do a direct comparison between it and the Cambridge Audio CXU with the same DAC. I had already parted company with the 6000CDT when I switched to the Morpheus.