UK hi-fi company, Audiolab has introduced Omnia, a ‘just add speakers’ music systems featuring a Class AB amp, CD player, streaming capabilities and a turntable.
Catering to as many music listening methods as possible, the Omnia all-in-one music systems has a CD player, integrated hi-fi amp, a wireless streaming player, digital-to-analogue conversion, a dedicated headphone amp, an analogue pre-amp, and a phono stage for cabling to a moving-magnet turntable.
The high-performance CD drive is made to be robust and reliable, building on Audiolab’s 6000CDT CD transport with a read-ahead digital buffer to reduce disc-reading failures. The high-performance of this CD player allows users to play scratched and damaged CDs that are unreadable by conventional mechanisms.
The player is equipped with an ethernet port for networked audio playback, allowing it to have a wired connection and the wider bandwidth requirements of high-resolution digital audio.
Omnia also has streaming capabilities with 802.11ac Wi-Fi for streaming via DTS Play-Fi. This allows app-controlled high-resolution playback at up to 24-bit/192kHz resolution, with support for services such as Amazon Music, Spotify, TIDAL, Napster, Deezer, Qobuz, and Pandora, as well as internet radio. Users can also stream audio from a smartphone over Bluetooth 5.0 with support for aptX and aptX LL codecs. Omnia can also be part of a multiroom set up.
Audiolab’s new ESS9038 Q2M SABRE 32 Reference DAC performs D/A conversion, utilising ESS Technology’s 32-bit HyperStream II architecture and Time Domain Jitter Eliminator to deliver ultra-low noise and high-dynamic-range. Via the USB DAC section, Omnia also offers full decoding of MQA, enabling users to play MQA audio files and streams, received via the USB input, at the original file’s full resolution and passes the signal through its DAC and preamp stages.
The all-in-one music system features high-quality analogue preamp circuitry coupled with line-level RCA inputs to connect analogue sources. High-quality components are used to maintain signal purity with line input signals passing to a precision analogue stage. It also features a dedicated MM phono input to allow a turntable to be directly connected to the player via a high-quality, low-noise, phono stage with precise RIAA equalisation.
Audiolab is a Roon Tested partner, which has extended to the Omnia music system. Roon transforms the experience of browsing music, automatically locating artist photos, credits, bios, reviews, lyrics, tour dates, and composers, then interconnected by links to build a surfable, searchable digital magazine about your collection.
A 4.3” colour LCD IPS display is included on the front of the player, displaying system settings, format data, track details as well as real-time VU meters that pulse to the decibel levels of the left and right channels.
An easy setup, Omnia simply requires users to connect passive speakers. The discrete Class AB amp stage delivers 50W per channel into 8 ohms, with a maximum current delivery of 9 amps, into difficult loads. The output stage of the discrete power amp circuits uses a CFB (Complementary Feedback) topology, ensuring superior linearity and excellent thermal stability, as the idle current is kept independent of the temperature of the output transistors. A substantial 200VA toroidal transformer, followed by 4x15,000uF reservoir capacity (60,000uF in total), helps the amp to maintain firm control of the music whilst enabling excellent dynamic range.
The Omnia music system is available now in black or silver priced at £1,599.