Music streamers
With so many streaming options out there, you’ll need your streams to flow smoothly. These will sort that
Audiolab 6000N Play £449
The Audiolab 6000N Play is as unassuming as hi-fi streamers come, with a screen-less, largely unadorned chassis that gives nothing of its vast network talents away. But, behind that modest façade, it has every right to exude an air of quiet confidence.
The Play uses the same ES9018 Sabre32 Reference DAC chip found in the company’s 6000A amplifier and Award-winning M-DAC, and features ESS Technology’s Time Domain Jitter Eliminator, which works to analyse and algorithmically correct the input signal to improve timing.
The foundation of the unit’s streaming experience, meanwhile, is based on DTS’S Play-fi hi-res, multi-room platform. Having Play-fi at its software core means that, when connected to a network through ethernet or its dual-band wi-fi, the 6000N Play can access services such as Spotify Connect, Tidal, Hdtracks, Deezer, Qobuz, Amazon Music, Napster, Tunein, iheartradio and Siriusxm.
It also means it can stream files up to 24-bit/192khz from networked servers thanks to DLNA and UPNP compliance. And it can connect wirelessly with up to 32 other Play-fi-equipped devices for a multi-room set-up. The gateway to these functions is the DTS Play-fi control app.
We play Big Thief’s Cattails, and the Audiolab reveals a wide-open canvas, colouring it with well-imaged detail lavished with a welcome amount of subtlety and space.
It has the insight to capture the band’s trademark qualities. Adrianne Lenker’s distinct vocal is carried with stark clarity, acoustic finger-picking is tangible, and there’s the dynamic interest to convey the subtle eruptions in its folky flair as well as the song’s inevitable build as it creeps towards a dense, frenetic climax.
As we play Orange, with Lenker’s honest, exposed vocal as the centrepiece, the 6000N Play puts its articulacy and transparency to the greater good to lay down the vulnerabilities in her quivering delivery.
The Audiolab doesn’t quite knit music strands together as tightly as the 2018-Award-winning Bluesound Node 2i, nor does it have the warmth we were instantly drawn to with its rival, but with greater clarity, openness and a down-themiddle tonal balance, it proves the more insightful and involving listen.
Red Wine served on time
It’s not as if the 6000N Play is unpunctual or not musically on the money. As we bring our listening to an upbeat close, the New Pornographers’ Champions Of Red Wine is driven with pace and precision as the drumbeat thrums away and the melodic electronica cascades. Consider us agreeably entertained.
The Play is a great, affordable way to implement streaming into your system without compromising sonic quality – and with the added bonus of being able to slip into your hi-fi rack inconspicuously. Quite frankly, it’s the best budget solution we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.