Superb!I bought it 25 years ago and I’m still very satisfied with its sound until today. It is extremely transparent, smooth, with full detail, analytical, neutral, excellent focus of sounds on stage. It feeds a pair of Rogers LS8A and sounds great with good recording editions CDs read by a Marantz CD player or Sony video DVD blueray player.

Due to its age, this amplifier has no remote control.

Bought a 2nd hand series 2 few months ago. Sound was fine because it's more than 15yrs so i decided to change all the old caps to Elna silmic 2 and power to 15k mundorf hv caps, original was 10k elna.The total cost is equal to the cost of the amp itself. What a transformation, the bass is so tight, the mids so liquid sounds like a tube amp right now. To all 8000a owners, pls upgrade and hear for yourself. Best Example is.. your wife with and without makeup and nice dress vs PJ's. A $3k amp won't even sound this good. My next tweak is to use v cap to bypass the mundorfs. Is it worth it spending this much? Depends on your budget. Spending $1k on upgrades or a new amp at $3k for me....it's a no-brainer. I like the design and size as it fits my shelf and its reliable . This new amp is good to last me another 15yrs without any upgrades on buying endless amps.

Not much after the upgrades

Very good Amp. Bought as a stand In for my Musical Fidelity A1 (requires repair again) Good Bass, very open with good soundstage and clear highs. Had been using an old Yamaha A400 and it blows that into the water! Whilst there was nothing wrong with the Yamaha, switching to the 8000A (V3) was like lifting the veil. A very capable amp that suits my set-up!

I'm not sure that it is as "musical" as the Musical Fidelity A1. The only way to find out is to order up some Caps, Pots and switches and get soldering. Edit - 12/04/20 Well actually I bought a pair of Quad 77-11L's and the amp has sprung into life. It's now poised, powerful and transparent, allowing the music to flow. Next I might go for one of the available upgrades for the 8000A - who knows!

Sounds more powerfull than 60W PC
Fantastic detail, certainly compared to new budget amps I've heard up to about £250.I know this wasnt a cheap amp in its time just pointing out the bargain it is 2nd hand if you are prepared to take the risk of no warranty.

Ermmm.. none.. certainly at the prices they go for on ebay £85-150

I know she is old but what an amazing amp for the price I paid on ebay.. £85 ! I previously had a NAD C350 but have been revisting my old CD's with much glee :) I've partnered it with other cheap old faithfull's off ebay, Tannoy Revolution R2's £80 and a Marantz CD6000 OSE LE though I also use a Philips CD-850 MK11 which seems better for certain cd's I guess the Cd6000 combined with the 8000A is a bit bright sounding with some tracks and the laid back CD-850 chills things out a bit !

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Extraordinary clarity. Cohesion of sound. Depth of soundfield. General openness.
Vocals to die for.

Will relegate all your poor recordings.

What a stunning amplifier, seriously.
My Father had owned an 8000A MK1 for 15 years and my family had never stopped praising it until finally I got my hands on one of the later 60wpc versions through ebay. A great day had come at last!
Have no qualms - this is one of the most enjoyable amplifiers that you just may have the privilege of listening to.

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Matched with NHT Super One speakers - surprisingly nice combination.
Rotel 930AX cd player (cheap though good).
QED Silver Anniversary cables (how shiny the cymbals become).

Detail, analytical, neutral, dynamic, good sound stage and space and solid built up. Worthful as a 2nd amp.

slightly lack of bass & punchy, bass not deep enough, poor quality of the connector/plug, need to turn >9'o clock in order to reveal the sound

I had bought the 2nd hand Audiolab 8000A at RM 1200 (~USD 340) in Malaysia about 2 months ago. The version I bought is without the video input connector (s/n 891042, sould be product ~1995?) (there is a newer version with video input, s/n have a “b” in the middle). I do agree with most reviews saying that it is detail, analytical, neutral, dynamic, good sound stage and space, sound quality very depend on the sound and the system matching including the cables & interconnect. The bass is tight but slightly lack of the quantity and the punch is not deep enough (it may not fulfill the needs of the bass lover). It is more reveal while volume > 9 o’ clock. Besides, I found it is quite sensitive to the power supply, a good power cord can give obvious improvement on its sound qualilty, the uses of the CD mat also will improve/stand out the sound stage and give more clean and dynamic sound quality. 8000A can be very musical depending on the matching of the system including cables and so on. Currently, i’m quite satisfy with its performance on the song/music I listen to (instrument, new age, classical, drums & vocal). Will give 4.75 star for overall rating if there is. As a 2nd hand amp, it is really worthful. My current system is: Pioneer DVD player (going to upgrade) Audiolab 8000A AE AEGIS 1 speaker QED QUNEX2 interconnect & QED QUDOS/ORIGINAL speaker cable ? Previousely is using Monster XP speaker cable n a germany made interconnect – where the system is too bright and lack of bass (improved after using QED) System had been tested on the 8000A: A) NAD C521BEE CD player Monitor Audio Bronze 3 speaker Chord cobra 2 interconect & Transparent 14.4hp speaker cable (bi-wire) B) Shanling T-80 (tube) CD player AE 1 speaker Audio quest interconnec (The Shanling CD player is a nice piece, good detail and solid build up, excellent connectorfor interconnect) By the way, is there anybody can share with me the performance on this 8000A with a power amp, if any of you had use the power amp other than 8000P? e.g: Exposure 2010, Quad 606 or 909 and etc. My email is : sswong@healthtronics.com.my

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Build, design, inputs, MM/MC stages, tone controls, ability to add power amp. Bass performance. Honest sound.

Unsatisfactorily mounted phono sockets on rear. No r/c for volume. Too honest for some recordings. Non linear frequency response (treble roll off) at low volumes.

Having owned the Audiolab 8000A series III for a number of years I can give, I hope, a reasonably accurate account of it. I bought it at the time for its accuracy - being partnered with a mildly warm Philips CD850 and mildly forward Tannoy 613's. In reality, it is mildly coloured. Mid range is slightly forward and hi treble is rolled back. The latter can be adjusted with tone controls. The extra mid range presence gives great atmosphere on good recordings but a metallic harshness on poor. This is more to do with the accuracy of the amp but I do think it is sensitive to the quality of the source. One issue I have is that the frequency response is very flat once the volume knob is >8 o'clock - but below this the treble rolls off considerably (up to 7dB). My speakers are 6Ohm nominally so are an easy load for the amp. Unfortunately, most of my listening is done at night and the volume usually is kept between 7 and 8 o'clock. Adding a bit of treble restores things but if you don't get it right then recording can seem either flat or bright. Furthermore, with different recordings, the volume may need to be adjusted slightly - meaning the treble needs adjusting too. There is no remote for volume or treble! The tone controls are excellent though - just shaping the frequency curves at 20Hz and 20kHz. The pypass works too - unfortunately often I can't use it :(. I can't criticise the bass though. It is certainly got all the tightness and oomph I need - and the room and speakers become more contributory in this matter anyway. The only fault I have had is when one of the gold contacts came off the CD input socket due to the removal of a very tight interconnect. The ground side is not very well attached to the PCB socket inside and is fragile too. Overall, the Audiolab is a fine amp. Parter it carefully, preferably with 8Ohm speakers and enjoy a very accurate (to the point of being a weakness!), solid, versatile amplifier for years to come.

solid & natural sound.

not suit with rock music. volume knob & cd input start to have distort sound.

i like it very well, but anyone can help me to get or email me the copy of it's owner's manual. coz i bought it secondhand without it. now my cd input have distort sound, anyone know what is the problem?

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very clean neutral sound, tone control, alot cheaper to buy now second hand, better to have than similiar priced new products

variable left/right channel output, weak rear terminals also sited to close together

the audiolab 8000a is a strong contender for a classic amp classic fine lines and a neutral base would suit any one who wants to match a dull/bright cd player to a bright/dull pair of speakers

phono, neutrality

I have this amp for seven years now and could agree with almost everything previous reviews are saying, even bad ones,. I do agree with bad ones because I know how this Audiolab can sound with bad equipment and I know how it sounds with good one. People say sh*t in sh*t out, this amplifier is a pretty neutral unit which transmits the source signal without adding to much flavour of its own. We should remember that even at the end of its production run it was I believe just under 1000$ and a lot of people trying to compare it with today''s amplifiers costing three times that . It just underlines what a bargain this amplifier was or even is, if you can buy it second hand. Created in the vinyl era, probably the best feature of this amp is it’s phono stage, MM/MC selectable, here again you would probably have to spend more than 1000$ for a separate phono stage to have the same quality of the sound. With the prices in today''s audio market being completely wild, I think with the sound this unit can produce, it’s phono stage and quality construction if someone is to make it again it would cost at arround 2000$ or even more retail. I still have this amplifier in my second system and I’m amazed every time I listen to it at how little I loose in sound quality while listening to it in comparison to my main system costing many times more. You will have to search very hard to find something as good as this amplifier at the price when it was new, and you will NEVER find anything even close to this unit at the price they are sold preowned especially if you would like to have a Vinyl playback of some sort.

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