Audiolab is a British manufacturer of

audio equipment Audio equipment refers to devices that reproduce, record, or process sound. This includes microphones, radio receivers, AV receivers, CD players, tape recorders, amplifiers, mixing consoles, effects units, headphones, and speakers. Audio equip ...

. It specializes in affordable systems and has a range of

stereo Stereophonic sound, commonly shortened to stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configurat ...

and

surround sound Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener ( surround channels). Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to ...

systems. During its ownership under

McLaren Group McLaren Group Limited ( ) is a British holding company based in Woking, England, which is involved in Formula One and other motorsport and the manufacture of sports cars. The group was founded by Ron Dennis shortly after his acquisition of the ...

it was named TAGMcLaren Audio.

History

Audiolab was founded by Philip Swift and Derek Scotland in 1983. They met as students of Imperial College, and shared a common frustration of the high cost of hi-fi equipment and the difficulty of use. The first product was the 8000A

integrated amplifier An integrated amplifier (pre/main amp) is an electronic device containing an audio preamplifier and power amplifier in one unit, as opposed to separating the two. Most modern audio amplifiers are integrated and have several inputs for devices s ...

, followed by the 8000C

preamplifier A preamplifier, also known as a preamp, is an electronic amplifier that converts a weak electrical signal into an output signal strong enough to be noise-tolerant and strong enough for further processing, or for sending to a power amplifier a ...

, the 8000P

power amplifier An audio power amplifier (or power amp) amplifies low-power electronic audio signals, such as the signal from a radio receiver or an electric guitar pickup, to a level that is high enough for driving loudspeakers or headphones. Audio power a ...

and 8000M mono-blocks. As the company grew, they developed new products including

CD players A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or audi ...

, transports,

radio tuner In electronics and radio, a tuner is a type of receiver subsystem that receives RF transmissions, such as AM or FM broadcasts, and converts the selected carrier frequency into a form suitable for further processing or output, such as to a ...

s and

digital-to-analog converter In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC, D/A, D2A, or D-to-A) is a system that converts a digital signal into an analog signal. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) performs the reverse function. DACs are commonly used in musi ...

s. Audiolab was taken over by TAG McLaren in 1998. The TAG McLaren Audio enterprise suffered adversely from the economic slump in the early 2000s, and announced that it ceased development in mid-2003 followed by a strategic review. The audio operations were eventually sold to the International Audio Group (headquartered in

Shenzhen Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

), which owns other Hi-Fi manufacturers such as

Quad QUaD, an acronym for QUEST at DASI, was a ground-based cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiment at the South Pole. QUEST (Q and U Extragalactic Sub-mm Telescope) was the original name attributed to the bolometer detector instrume ...

, Mission,

Wharfedale Wharfedale ( ) is one of the Yorkshire Dales. It is situated at source in North Yorkshire and then flows into West Yorkshire and forms the upper valley of the River Wharfe. Towns and villages in Wharfedale (downstream, from west to east) includ ...

and

Castle Acoustics Castle (formerly known as Castle Acoustics) is a British Loudspeaker brand, first established in 1973. Castle Acoustics was founded in 1973 and takes its name and its logo from the 11thC historic Skipton Castle, the North Yorkshire market town o ...

. In 2005 Audiolab re-emerged with a whole new range of equipment. In 2010, Audiolab unveiled a range of audio components that have been badged the 8200 series, as opposed to the traditional 8000 series. In addition to adding a larger monoblock amplifier, the 8200MB, the digital components also accept digital input from computers and other digital sources. The new 8200 series digital products have been designed by John Westlake, aside from the 8200 AV. The 8300 series was introduced in 2015 (including the integrated amplifier 8300A, the CD player 8300CD, and the power amplifiers 8300MB and 8300XP). A cheaper 6000 series (designed by Danish designer Jan Ertner) was launched in 2017. Audiolab was sold as ''Camtech'' in Germany and the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

Awards

Audiolab 8200CD player designed by John Westlake - Product of the Year 2010 by What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision magazine.{{Cite web , url=http://awards.whathifi.com/winners/cd-players/2010 , title=CD Players | What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision Awards 2011 , access-date=2010-12-02 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111018162428/http://awards.whathifi.com/winners/cd-players/2010 , archive-date=2011-10-18 , url-status=dead The Audiolab 8200CD won the same Product of the year award for CD players from What Hi*Fi? Sound and Vision in 2011 and 2012. The Audiolab MDAC won Product of the Year for DACs (Digital to analogue converters) in the same 2011 What Hi*Fi? Sound and Vision awards.

References

External links

Official Audiolab website
Audio amplifier manufacturers Compact Disc player manufacturers Audio equipment manufacturers of the United Kingdom