An affordable, well-made music streamer, but does the 7000N Play give enough in terms of sound?
View online review whf.cm/7000N_Play
Audiolab has an impressive track record with regard to wallet-friendly hi-fi designed to give musical satisfaction for a sensible price. The Audiolab 7000N Play sits relatively low down on the network-streamer price scale, no bad thing considering how impressed we were with the refinement and insight of Audiolab’s entry-level 6000N Play. That budget streamer gained a What Hi-Fi? Award a few years ago, so we are hopeful a similar trick can be repeated with the slightly more costly 7000N Play.
There’s certainly tough competition at this level, courtesy of the Award-winning Bluesound Node (2021) and the recently introduced Cambridge Audio MXN10, both of which feature in this group test.
Not a risk-taker
If you are choosing the 7000N Play music streamer over the 6000N, you probably want to know what you are getting over the cheaper model. Like the 6000N, the 7000N comes equipped with optical and coaxial digital outputs and a pair of RCA line-level outputs, and you can connect to your home network using wi-fi or wired ethernet. The 7000N Play is kitted out with a newer ESS Sabre ES9038Q2M DAC, a step up on that used in the 6000N. You also now get AirPlay 2, an updated version of the Play-Fi streaming module, and enhanced power-supply circuitry.
Aesthetically, the Audiolab 7000N Play doesn’t exactly take many risks. It’s a broad, rectangular unit without many flourishes or add-ons, although you do get a full-colour display with a Graphical User Interface so that you can control and change things such as brightness, display time-out, 12V trigger function and language.
There’s a volume control accessible through the remote which you can use either with an integrated amp or a pre/power but which can also be directly plugged into a pair of active speakers for a more minimalist set-up. The supplied remote lets you control volume, track skipping, standby and menu access, as well as on-the-fly model selection if you also own the 7000A and 7000CDT CD transport from the same range.
As with the older 6000N, this new streamer uses the DTS Play-Fi app to access a variety of music-streaming sources including Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, Qobuz and SiriusXM, as well as a variety of internet radio stations. The addition of AirPlay 2 is welcome, while it can play music from any connected NAS devices on the same network. The app works reasonably well in some respects, but we find it to not be as responsive o
