These are not the same size of amplifier: Audiolab 9000A has roughly 2x the power of MOON 250i v2. That is about 3dB, so it is a question of room size and how hard your speakers are to drive, not of one being the better amplifier.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Audiolab 9000A has more power - 100W against 50W into 8 ohms. That is about 3dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate MOON 250i v2 the better fit for desk or near-field listening and a small room, and Audiolab 9000A for a mid-size room, a large room and a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | A | MOON 250i v2 holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 100W, where the other increases strongly. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | B | Audiolab 9000A is the quieter design on paper - 110dB against 101dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Audiolab 9000A has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Analogue inputs | A | MOON 250i v2 takes more analogue sources - 6 against 3. |
| Use with a TV | depends | Only Audiolab 9000A has HDMI Arc, so the television can drive it directly and one remote controls the volume. If the system is for music only, this changes nothing. |
| Price | A | MOON 250i v2 costs less - $2,400 against $2,999 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Audiolab 9000A is the cheaper watt - about $30 per watt against $48. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A MOON 250i v2 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: Audiolab 9000A measures better, MOON 250i v2 costs about 20% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - MOON 250i v2 is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. Start with the room. In a large or open-plan room, or with speakers that are hard to drive - low sensitivity, or an impedance that dips - Audiolab 9000A has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 50 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 50 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate Audiolab 9000A poorly for near-field use for exactly that reason.
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.