How to connect the Audiolab 7000N Play to the 7000A and Wharfedale Linton Heritage
Two connections again, and one unusual fact underneath them. Audiolab put the same converter in both boxes: the 7000N Play runs an ESS Sabre ES9038Q2M, and so does the 7000A. So the question that occupies most of these pages, which end of the cable should do the digital-to-analogue conversion, has an unusually honest answer here. The same part does it either way.
That leaves the Wharfedale Linton Heritage as the part of this system most likely to be set up wrong, and not for any reason to do with cable. They are handed. The treble units are offset in the cabinet, and a pair fitted the wrong way round will play perfectly while throwing the stereo image away.
What you need
- Already have
- Nothingno interconnect in either Audiolab carton
- Need to buy
- Stereo RCA interconnect7000N Play to 7000A
- Speaker cablesone pair, equal lengths
The Lintons are large standmounts and heavy with it, 565mm tall on their plinths, 300mm wide, 360mm deep once the terminals are counted, and 18.4kg each. Where they end up is a furniture decision before it is an audio one, so settle it before the cable is cut. Wharfedale's guidance is that too close to the walls increases the bass but can leave it boomy and indistinct, and that the further out they come, the more toe-in they will take, by up to about thirty per cent more angle.
Then measure the run around the edge of the room, take the longer side, allow slack, and buy a pair of equal lengths. Wharfedale ask for twin core cable per channel and for the terminals to be tightened securely on whatever you use, bare wire, banana plugs or spades.
One number worth checking against your own room rather than ours: the Lintons ask for an amplifier between 25 and 200 watts, and are 6 ohms nominal, dropping to 3.5 ohms at their lowest. The 7000A delivers 70 watts into 8 ohms and 110 into 4, so it sits comfortably inside that window with room above it.
Connecting it
- Work out which speaker is which before you move them twice. The Linton Heritage has its treble unit offset to one side of the cabinet, and Wharfedale ask for the treble units inwards, which means the W badge on each grille ends up towards the outside of the pair.
- Leave the grilles on. Wharfedale are explicit that the front grilles help the drive units disperse and are part of the design, and that taking them off gives a brighter but less smooth sound.
- With the amplifier off, run the speaker cable. Unscrew each terminal a few turns, connect red positive to red positive and black negative to black negative, then tighten securely. Left channel to the left speaker, right to the right.
- Run the stereo RCA interconnect from the 7000N Play's line output to one of the 7000A's analogue line inputs.
- Check the 7000A is in Integrated mode. The MODE button cycles between Pre, Integrated and Pre-Power, and Integrated is the one where the volume control and the speaker terminals both belong to the same box.
- Power up, select the input, and bring the volume up from low. If nothing comes out, look at the streamer before you look at the cable: the 7000N Play's analogue output is set to ADJUSTABLE by default, so its own level lives in the DTS Play-Fi app and can be sitting at zero.
The volume that follows you
These two are built to work as a pair, and there is a feature here that no cable plan would reveal. Connect a USB data cable between the 7000N Play and the 7000A's USB update port, and the streamer's volume synchronises with the amplifier's, so the DTS Play-Fi app controls the volume of the 7000A itself rather than a level inside the streamer.
Audiolab's own recommendation, once that cable is in place, is to set the 7000N Play's analogue output to FIXED. Left in its default ADJUSTABLE state you have two volume controls in series and no clear idea which one is holding the system back. Fixed sends the streamer out at maximum, the app moves the amplifier, and there is one volume in the system again.
The USB cable is a data cable rather than an audio one, and neither box supplies it. It is optional in the sense that the music plays without it, and worth having in the sense that it is the difference between one remote and two.
The same converter, either way round
The 7000N Play has coaxial and optical digital outputs as well as the analogue pair, and the 7000A has two of each as inputs, so the digital route is available and takes one coaxial 75 ohm lead or one Toslink optical lead, neither supplied.
What makes this pairing different from most is that the choice does not change the converter. Both boxes carry the ES9038Q2M, so running it digitally moves the conversion from one chassis to the other and leaves the part doing the work the same. What does change is where the volume happens, which is the reason to prefer one over the other, and it is settled by the USB question above rather than by the cable.
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