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Re: Ayre CX-7e CD player - next impressions.

I now have about 250 hours on the machine. You know 500 hours of break-in is a LONG time, that's 21 days operated 24/7.

Anyway, I tried something new. Instead of having the RCA outputs feed a TVC where most of the time it is stepping up, making a load as far down as 14K ohms, I added a 27-based linestage with 200K input impedance to buffer it. It sounds much different this way. Much more solid dynamics and the tone is pretty spot on neutral to me, at least relatively. Did I lose any detail? Maybe a touch. It is another piece added to the chain. But there were gains that made up for that. The player is not as "mesmerizing" in its odd liquidity and slow bounce that the TVC alone had. It is still fully detailed in the soundstage with excellent image specificity, but perhaps lost a little depth and "roundness" to it. It will make the Lowther driver shout more often than with the TVC, a trait I could do without. I have to learn to turn down the volume more. The Lowther really only shouts when played loud. Having more gain tempts me to try louder settings, and then it's not the player's fault, it's my speaker. I can't imagine a Lowther user not front loading it. Without the gains of the front load, the driver would be shouting at significantly lower volume levels, and unacceptably so to me.

I don't know for sure which setup is better overall yet, but it goes to show how much the matings of components will affect the overall presentation of this player. And I am still a firm believer in using the "Measure" mode over "Listen" in this situation. I don't understand it that much, but the difference is enormous to me, and I like "Measure" way more at this point. Maybe for SET folks like me, it's often the preferred option as opposed for the balanced SS folks.

That about sums it up for now. It's only halfway broken in! Dang this is slow moving now. The first 100 hours showed the most change, now it's getting more subtle in movement.

Kurt

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