Hi-Fi World – September 2019

REVIEW

10 HI-FI WORLD SEPTEMBER 2019 http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk

S

treaming is where it’s at

with digital audio today.

Vinyl may be making a

comeback and sales of one

box record players are

remarkable – but if you

want to hear digital music at its best,

discs are no longer it.

The main barrier to uptake of

streaming is complexity – and that

you have to rip your CD collection

to a hard drive if you want to stream

it. So many are cutting out the

ownership element altogether: with

lossless streaming services such as

Qobuz and Tidal available – at a price

• you don’t need to buy and store
  discs anymore, CDs or LPs.
  The Audiolab 6000N I am
  reviewing here is a wireless/wired
  streamer that lets you access various
  streaming services or music stored
  on a network drive at a low price
  few can match. The only alternatives

I could find were the Yamaha CD-

NT670D (£299), Denon DNP800NE

(£379) and Blueroom Node 2i

(£499); some might include the Sonos

Connect (£349) but not if sound

quality is a factor. After or arguably

before sound quality, the most

important thing about a streamer

is its control software – Sonos is

successful in the streaming market

through ease of use. Audiolab have

avoided the pitfalls and cost of

Stream

Machine

Audiolab's 6000N budget streamer makes discs obsolete says Jason Kennedy. Ouch!