 Unreviewed this time, the Audiolab 8300CDQ, a DAC with integrated CD player and pre-amp functionality that does up to 384 kHz sampling and QAD coding and rendering. Confused? You won't be after this episode of the Hans Beekhuisensje. The well-respected predecessor, the Audiolab 8200CDQ, was designed by the esteemed electronics engineer John Westlake that also designed the Project Streambox S2 and Probox S2 Digital. See my reviews, links in the show notes. When the 8300 series was introduced, Westlake was not involved but the electronics design was not far off from that of the 8200 series. For the 8300CDQ he did design the high-res USB input board and MQAD coding though. I've noticed that to many it's not clear what the possibilities are of the devices I review. So from now on I will shortly describe the primary applications. Since the 8300CDQ also is a CD player, you can use it just like that. Connect it over RCA cables to your amplifier that in turn is connected to the loudspeakers. Volume control should be done on the amplifier while the output of the Audiolab player is set to 100%. On this Audiolab you can also connect your computer as a source. Depending on the computer you can use either USB, SPDIF or optical. In general USB is preferred but sometimes, depending on the computer, one of the other two will sound better. Simply try to find out. In all cases it's best to keep the cable length below 1.5 meters or 5 feet. A third option is to use a so called network bridge. Now there is no need to place the computer close to the stereo. You can place it anywhere in the house as long as there is a network connection. The computer is connected to the router and from the router a network cable runs to a simple small box called a network bridge that is connected to the 8300CDQ using USB. This is potentially the best solution although the quality of the network bridge plays an important role here. Finally, let me mention that the 8300CDQ can also be used as a pre-amplifier. When you own active speakers, speakers with built-in amplifiers, the output of the 8300CDQ can be connected directly to the speakers. If you have passive speakers, ones that need a power amplifier, you connect the 8300CDQ to a stereo power amplifier or two mono power amplifiers and connect the output of those to the loudspeakers. The 8300CDQ is available in black and silver and weighs 6 kilos. It is 444 mm wide, 317 mm deep and 18 mm high. The left of the front holds the slot loading CD drive. In the middle, the display that indicates the input, sample rate, MQA status and, when playing CDs, track and time. The right half contains 10 small buttons, the left six controlling the CD drive and selects the menu. Further to the right, the input select buttons and the volume up and down buttons. A 6.3 mm headphone jack and a standby button can be found on the far right. The rear holds an IEC mains connector with above that the power button. Then further to the right, the unbalanced analog stereo outputs on RCA, the balanced analog outputs on XLR, three analog line inputs, digital outputs on RCA in TOSLink, two digital inputs on RCA, two digital inputs on TOSLink and a digital input on USB-B socket. That adds up to seven digital inputs and three analog inputs. A trigger input and a pass-through facilitates automatic switching on of for instance power amps. It is rather crowded inside as you can see. The first thing I notice is the toroidal transformer, meaning a linear power supply. And not just a simple one. At first glance I already found 17 voltage regulators and countless capacitors. Westlake loves separate voltage regulators per electronic circuit and it shows. The DAC chip is the ESS 9018S. Yes, I know there already is a 9028 and a 9038 but please note this is not the mobile version you find in most DACs. It is the high spec S version. And as I have said many times, it's the way that it's applied that brings the sound quality. Like for instance with a very clean clock signal and ditto voltage line. That's what is used in this design, so my expectations are high. I had the player burn in for almost a week of 24-7 playback and since that happened this time near my setup 1, I connected it instead of the MiTech Brooklyn using the SOtM-SMS-200 Ultra Neo as network bridge to feed the USB input on the audio lab. You can select inputs on the front or on the remote control. In both cases you browse through the options until the wanted input is shown in the display. I would have preferred discrete buttons for each input on the remote. But it is used for more products from the 8300 series. CD for this player, A for amplifier and N for streamer, which is an advantage but it comes with a compromise too. Like with the filter settings. There are six filters of which three are uninteresting, at least to me. The three optimal transient filters differ somewhat and it depends on the track plate which one I preferred. It does mean that you have to step through all six filters to get back to the one you want. For DSD playback you can select from four cutoff frequencies, depending on the sensitivity of your amp to HF noise the noise shaper used for DSD encoding. Choices are between 47 and 70 kHz. Maximum sample rate over USB is 384 kHz for PCM and DSD 256. Over SPDIF and Toslink the maximum sample rate is 192 kHz for PCM, DSD 64 and 384 kHz for MQA. The first sounds already impressed me right away. The stereo midge is wide and deep, equal to that of my MiTech Brooklyn with syntax power supply. The same goes for the tonal balance with the exception of the highs that are slightly more present but less refined. The real difference between the Brooklyn syntax combination and the audio lab is in the transients. Apparently the reconstruction filters of the Brooklyn are clearly better in transient response. But the Brooklyn syntax combo costs over 3.000 euros. What if I would use the Brooklyn with its own power supply? Now the audio lab is clearly the winner with the exception of the transients. There the Brooklyn is king. Okay, now let's see what the difference is between the audio lab as a CD player and as a DAC, driven from Roon over the SOtM. My experience is that ICT technology is far superior in delivering bits than an optical disk is when time is of the essence, as is the case with digital audio. I must say that the difference is rather small here but it is there. The Roon signal over the SOtM ripped from the same CD sounded somewhat more relaxed and detailed than when placing the CD itself in the audio lab. But it is far less than I have experienced in the past with other products. The last thing to try out is to take the SOtM out of the equation. In other words, what will happen if a less perfect signal is offered over USB? So I connected my 8 years old MacBook Pro i7 with SSD drive, started Roon up and played from that. Although the sound quality was somewhat lower, especially the stereo image, it was not bad at all. I've heard a lot worse using the same laptop. At 1500 euros you buy a fine sounding DAC, CD player and preamp that also does MQA. Lots of inputs and outputs makes it easy to hook up the TV, the game console audio, the network bridge, computer and so on. There even is a setting for the SPDIF and optical inputs that makes it less critical for jittery sources. The inputs used for high quality sources, like a quality streamer, can be set to low bandwidth to offer the highest quality. Sources like game consoles and digital TV can be connected to inputs that have the bandwidth set to high for better reliability and thus potentially lower audio quality. The AudioLab 8300CDQ is a quality product offered at a competitive price. If you are interested in other reviews like this, subscribe to my channel or follow me on the social media. I will let you know when a new one is released. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up and please consider supporting the channel through Patreon or Paypal. Many thanks to all that financially support this channel already. It keeps me independent and thus trustworthy. See the links in the comments below this video on Youtube, if you want to join in. Help me to help even more people enjoy music at home by telling your friends on the web about this channel. I am Helms Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.