Different price classes - Audiolab 6000A costs roughly 3.3x what Audioengine N22 G2 does. Expect it to lead on paper; the question is whether you will hear the difference through the speakers you own.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 50W against 50W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | Audiolab 6000A holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output increases strongly to 75W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | A | Audioengine N22 G2 is the quieter design on paper - 90dB against 76dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | evenly matched | Both have a DAC on board with much the same capability. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Audiolab 6000A takes more analogue sources - 4 against 2. |
| Phono stage | depends | Audiolab 6000A has a built-in phono stage (MM) and Audioengine N22 G2 does not. Decisive if you own a turntable, completely irrelevant if you do not - and an outboard phono stage is easy to add later either way. |
| Room to grow | B | Only Audiolab 6000A offers a pre-out/main-in loop - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Shelf space | depends | Audioengine N22 G2 takes up about 86% less shelf area (218cm² against 1605cm²), and it is 149mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | Audioengine N22 G2 costs less - $269 against $899 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | Audioengine N22 G2 is the cheaper watt - about $5 per watt against $18. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Audioengine N22 G2 B Audiolab 6000A
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
Audiolab 6000A is ahead, but on only 1 of the measured areas, and it costs about 3.3x the price. That is a lot of money for a narrow margin - Audioengine N22 G2 is the sensible buy unless a specific feature above decides it for you. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Audiolab 6000A is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. If you play records, Audiolab 6000A saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.