I bought the new Audiolab 8200CD player recently and was impressed. One thing led to another and I decided that my budget amplifier needed upgrading (after 19 years of flawless continuous service!)
I was fortunate to get a "sale or return" from a dealer and the new amplifier was soon in place. The initial harshness was gone within a couple of days and listening tests could begin. My interests lie mainly with classical, especially string chamber music, although I do Jazz as well. Non-acoustic music doesn't really have any appeal for me - I developed my musical skills either playing the violin myself or listening to others do so on LPs played through a Quad/KEF system. By training I'm a physicist, so I can relate to the technical side as well.
The new setup was very revealing, perhaps a little too revealing in some cases. The bass was well-controlled (no booming) and the mid-band was very clear, if a little cool. Excellent soundstaging through my KEF speakers. High-ish volumes showed very little sign of hardening or constriction (my only quibble with my old amp). The problem was the top end. It was brighter than I was used to, but even allowing for that, it was just too enthusiastic. This led to very fatiguing extended listening and audible distortion (whether psycho-acoustic or objectively measurable isn't clear). Dynamic passages of string music above about 800Hz had a timbral quality that was just plain nasty! Once noticed, the music became unlistenable to. Even the finest string quartet recordings sounded dire, with listeners working far too hard to make any sense of the unintegrated audio data stream. Even on the good bits, the performers sounded as if they were working far too hard.
Brass and woodwind didn't really present the same issue to my ears, but the problem was also detectable on certain female voices. Piano music showed it clearly, but only if listened for - otherwise it could easily have been mistaken for a performance or recording "feature". When the 8200A was used for TV stereo sound the voices sounded superb. It was even quite a good match for my Arcam tuner - the real issues started when paired with its stablemate, the 8200CD. All testing was done with the Optimal Spectrum filter enabled - the other filters don't cut it on standard CDs (or even quality transfers of historic material). Jazz and other acoustic music (e.g. World) sounded pretty good - with the exception of Jazz violin, of course.
Well-built (although mine had a "sticky" motorised pot.) and sensibly specified. Retains its essential character at low volumes and shares the 8200CD's superb-in-the-hand remote control. Oh well - it's going back. Arcam, here I come!
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