One is a streaming all-in-one and the other is an amplifier. Judge them on how many boxes you want and what you already own, not on the spec sheet alone.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | A | Cambridge Audio Evo 150 has more power - 150W against 100W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.8dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Cambridge Audio Evo 150 the better fit for a very large room, and Audiolab 9000A for desk or near-field listening, a small room and a mid-size room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output increases strongly (250W and 160W). |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board. Cambridge Audio Evo 150 goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Streaming | A | Only Cambridge Audio Evo 150 has AirPlay 2, Chromecast and Roon. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Audiolab 9000A takes more analogue sources - 3 against 2. |
| Room to grow | B | Only Audiolab 9000A offers a pre-out/main-in loop - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Cambridge Audio Evo 150 is Class D and Audiolab 9000A is Class A/B. Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle; Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Shelf space | depends | Cambridge Audio Evo 150 takes up about 22% less shelf area (1190cm² against 1518cm²), and it is 30mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | Audiolab 9000A costs less - $2,999 against $3,249 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | Cambridge Audio Evo 150 is the cheaper watt - about $22 per watt against $30. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Cambridge Audio Evo 150 B Audiolab 9000A
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?
The usual trade-off: Cambridge Audio Evo 150 measures better, Audiolab 9000A costs about 8% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here.
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.