To buy or not to buy Audiolab 8000C

It's a simple and robust design, pretty easily fixed with generic parts. That said it's also old. I bought an 8000C a couple of years ago for just under $200 USD. For that price it's a great unit (class A preamp, great headphone, switchable MM, MC phono).
I would not spend over $200 on the unit, less since the toroid is not original.

My guess is that a brand new preamp of comparable build and sound quality would be well over $500, probably nearer $1000.

Seandtaylor is correct, had an Audiolab 8000c from new for over 10 years, sold it to a friend 4 years ago, still going strong. Its pretty neutral has a good phono stage and performs way above its price range. If it is at a reasonable price buy it. Here in the UK Audiolab amps hold their prices well and are much sought after.

Thank you very much Seandtaylor and Cnocmoy. Your replies are really helpful. I sometimes doubt my own ears and become unsure. But with your testimony, my doubt is reduced. I'm not too sure if the toraidal transformer is original. The wires conneted to the PCB and power cord appears to be of similar thickness, only thing is - one original purple wire is now connected to the torraidal that has a blue wire instead. On the torraidal, a paper label read 33/00 and Class 2, among other numerics. I suppose this means it was mfg on 33rd week of year 2000 but not sure whether the original torraidal should be Class 1 or Class 2. Do you guys remember how your labels read?

His asking price is around USD250, converted from local currency but I have already set my mark at USD185. It would be a better deal if he would succumb for USD170 but I think he may call off the deal at that price and start hunting for new propective buyers.

SJ

Good advice, I think, in both posts above. Just to add to that info, I have an Audiolab 8000A, built circa '86 which is still running strong. I have, however, had to re-cap the phono stage, which I did a few years ago, so this may well be an issue that may be imminent with a 10 year old piece. To be honest, I have never been totally satisfied with the re-cap on the phono stage, having taken it to a local tech who improvised and fixed it to the best of his ability. I have a feeling I definitely lost something with that re-cap, but if the phono stage is less important to you or unimportant to you, this is definitely less of an issue.

The loose rca's on the other hand might be more of an issue. As an upgrade (and I am not gifted with a soldering iron, much less any other piece of equipment used for manual labor), I had the rca's replaced on my 8000A with Cardas' a few years ago as well, (which cost me about $200 Cnd. or about $130 U.S.). This was a fairly serious upgrade sonically, and with extensive chassis damping as well (very cheap to do), I feel that I would have to spend considerably more (as in 3 to 4 times what I have invested in my ancient 8000A) to get a a worthwhile improvement in amplification and my 8000A is still a very strong piece of equipment. The Audiolab stuff, in general, is built like a brick "s+_*%$#use" and is very neutral as well as very tweakable. I think, as Sean said above, if you pay a few hundred for it, you can spend a bit more if need be and still be very happy. But you don't want to go chasing 10-15 year old equipment in this day and age.