lindsayt said:
You might find that your system sounds better without your integrated as a pre-amp. IE with your CD source: use either a power amps inbuilt volume control or a simple resistor based volume control between CD player and power amp, with short (0.5 metre) interconnects.
I think the A18 could work well as a preamp. I've been using my own A19 as preamp into a P38 for a while now—while I figure out what digital preamp to replace it with—, and I've compared this with an A38, both by itself, and also as preamp into the P38. I thought the A38 would have a better preamp section, but found the differences to be subtle. The biggest sound differences lay in their power amp sections despite the different output impedances.
While the A18 and the A19 also sound different, they apparently use the same volume attenuator. And I wouldn't be surprised if again the differences were to be found mostly in the power amps. It seems to me that Arcam imprints any character to the sound in the amplification, and their sources and preamps are nicely neutral so should pair well with lots of gear.
So it would be a matter of trying and seeing how the A18 works as preamp. But I don't see in advance any reason why it shouldn't work well.
The preamp output of the A18 is rated at a usefully low <50Ω, same as the A38. Something to take into account is the highish nominal sensitivity of 630mV, which is around the standard for Arcam but will not take some amps to full volume. I am not sure about the Audiolab 8000M, but I think the standard input sensitivity for Audiolab is > 1V.