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RE: Ayre USB DAC

>> Charles, can you disclose at this time your expected release date and approximate price? <<

We are working hard to finish up all of the last minute details. It will look a bit different than the prototype we had at CES -- a bit lower and sleeker, with a larger "window" for the display. We are also trying out a new analog circuit just to see how that sounds compared to the prototype that had something similar to the CX-7e circuit.

I would say two more weeks to nail down everything. Then we drop the checkered flag to say "Go!" and it takes a minimum of eight more weeks after that to have the custom chassis made, get the empty PCB's made, stuff them, assemble the units, test them, burn them in, et cetera. So that would put us into early March before they are actually in the showrooms.

We usually don't know the price until about two weeks before we ship them. The biggest unknown is the labor cost to stuff the PCB's. That's why we're saying "under $2500".

Only a USB input. All other digital inputs are, unfortunately, broken. They unnecessarily add jitter (and expense). In this case we are building a single purpose, high performance machine that will be reasonably priced. It will be perhaps the best way to get the music out of your computer for under $10,000.

None of our equipment has a polarity switch. The only place where it makes sense is a preamp, because that is the only place that you can change all of your sources. Unfortunately, changing polarity in the analog domain without degrading the performance is extremely expensive. And the last time that I did a test, I played about a dozen different discs and they all sounded better with the correct absolute polarity. So I'm not personally a fan of the feature myself. Our goal is to build killer sounding stuff that is easy to use. Sit down, press "Play" and relax. YMMV. We can't be all things to all people.

Same thing with a volume control. If you want to save money, the volume control should be combined with the amp to make an integrated. Then you can add all the sources you want. A good volume control isn't cheap, and adding one to this product would probably drive the cost up 50%. We'll lose 10% of potential sales because some people want a single-source system, but that's better than losing 50% of potential sales because someone is paying through the nose for a killer volume control that they don't need.

Hope this helps.

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