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 |
|---|
| Noise floor | B | Audiolab 7000A is the quieter design on paper - 110dB against 90dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board, but only Audiolab 7000A handles MQA. |
| Streaming | A | Only Marantz MCR 60n has AirPlay 2, Roon and HEOS. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Audiolab 7000A takes more analogue sources - 3 against 1. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Built-in sources | depends | Marantz MCR 60n has a CD player built in. That is one less box if you still play discs or listen to radio, and dead weight if you do not. |
| Shelf space | depends | Marantz MCR 60n takes up about 44% less shelf area (845cm² against 1510cm²), and it is 38mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | evenly matched | Priced within a few per cent of each other. |
A Marantz MCR 60n B Audiolab 7000A
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 7000A has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is.
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.