Different price classes - Audiolab 7000A costs roughly 1.8x what MISSION 778X 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 | A | Audiolab 7000A has more power - 70W against 45W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.9dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output increases strongly (110W and 65W). |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board. MISSION 778X goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Price | B | MISSION 778X costs less - $549 against $999 at list. |
A Audiolab 7000A B MISSION 778X
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?
Neither runs away with it - they trade advantages. Let the "depends" rows and the speakers you already own settle it. Think about the whole system: the roughly $450 saved by taking the cheaper one would buy better speakers or a subwoofer, which does more for the sound than the difference between two competent amplifiers.
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.