|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
192.25.142.225
I've had this player for about a week now, running constantly in repeat mode to break it in. It now has over 100 hours on it, and it's time to evaluate the potential for how well it ought to fit with my system in the long run.To sum up, I'd say this is the most balanced design I ever heard from CD. It does everything well: tone, dynamics, bass, mids, treble, detailed soundstage, imaging specificity, etc, and full bodied. It has a strong DC coupled output that feeds my TVC very well. I can even step up from the TVC and the sound doesn't seem to suffer from it.
I am using only the single-ended RCA jacks even though the manufacturer (our Charles Hansen) suggests balanced is where it really shines. I do have a minor quibble about the opinion of the sound of "Listen" mode vs. "Measure" mode. Listen mode is optimized for the time domain and Measure mode for the frequency domain. Since I value tone over detail I actually prefer the Measure mode so far. That might change after final break-in, 500 hours. But I doubt it, I think the tone is still going to be my preferred listening goal, and Measure mode delivers that.
This is the first time I have been happy with a CD player in my house. The old Sony SCD-777ES has not much over it, not even close, and the Ayre is not fully broken in yet. In SACD mode, the SCD-777ES has more detail and a fuller sound, but in its unmodified state it is actually boring to listen to. Not so with the Ayre on simple redbook CD.
Because this CD player is showing such a balanced presentation of the sound, it is going to be quick to dial in this sound to my system, which sounds the way I like it for the phono right now. I do believe I have nothing substantial that needs tweaking. Maybe a good synergistic interconnect is all it takes. Wow, this is the easiest no-brainer component I ever dealt with. I for the first time actually truly enjoy many CD's. It's not hopeless for redbook CD's after all. I finally hear the arguments in favor of this format.
That said, the phono still captures the music significantly better overall, especially in the midrange and highs. But this CD player is "analog-like", enough detail and body to feel you're not really losing anything, an illusion of sorts, until you go back and compare that to phono.
After 500 hours of break-in and a long term listening and tweaking, I might write a review about it. Of course I've not been a CD fan for so long and so I have next to no CD players to compare, just the ubiquitous SCD-777ES.
But I am very pleased with my purchase. It turned out to be the right one for me, or at least one of the right ones that could serve in that place.
Kurt
Follow Ups:
I am also very happy with this player. I am using synergistic ics, blacksands pc and of course the ayre blocks under the player. Last tweak I did was the blacksands pc and it brought out just a bit more detail. Would like to try higher end nordost ics but afraid it would tilt the player too bright.
Interesting!I had an Ayre on loan for a week, the unit had plenty of hours on it but I was advised to run it for 48 hours before evaluation.
My system cosists of Rega Saturn, ARC LS15, CJ Prem 11a, Martin Logan Aerius i.
I wanted to see how it would stack up against the Rega.
With my existing phono interconnects, the Rega was the better (just).
I wanted to try with balanced output (not available on the Rega) but I didn't have any so I borrowed a set of Vertex IQ leads.
Now there was a difference, more pace, the leading edges of the notes were more defined really enjoyable!Now the numbers!
I live in the UK, the Rega Saturn cost £1300 GBP. The Ayre is £2150 GBP The Vertex IQ £600 GBP.
Was the difference worth double the price? No it certainly wasn't. even if I got the same performance with the same IC's I currently use (Balanced set of leads £150.00)the difference in price is way out of proportion to the increase in performance. OK forget the leads, the Ayre is still 50% more than the Rega and at that price not worth it.
The build quality on the Ayre was excellent except for the CDROM drive tray, it looked so plasticky and cheap, like it had just fallen out of a $50 player.
Nice player? it certainly is, but with phono leads it is not as good as the Rega and £700.00GBP ($1200.00) buys one hell of a lot of music!!
"I live in the UK, the Rega Saturn cost £1300 GBP. The Ayre is £2150 GBP The Vertex IQ £600 GBP."That's unfortunate about your imported goods prices, except you get to have a nice Rega at a reasonable price. The prices for the Rega Saturn over here is about $2400 and it's $3000 for the Ayre. The difference at that point is negligible to me. What sold me more than anything else was that it is made in the USA, and I can get it serviced at the factory that much easier, if it needs it. I still like the "cheap" drawer. It works very well to me, quick and easy to load and unload discs, and I can't hear any noise coming from mine at the listening chair. After putting up with a Sony SCD-777ES I am feeling relief from that awful long wait just to load a disc.
And I have yet to hear a comment that the Rega Saturn's timbre is as good or better or worse than the Ayre. I had the opportunity to do a side-by-side comparison of the two players if I wanted to travel 3 hours each way and hope my hearing is still intact after such a long drive. I passed, and took the advice of the salesman that thought the Ayre was a better player. Maybe he gets better commission for selling Ayres, but that's the chance I took. I am not disappointed at all so far. I doubt I ever will be at this point.
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.
Last night I again compared the addition of a 27 line stage against it straight into the TVC. I did a little tube rolling on the Type 27 triode in the line stage and took a Philco ST for more smoothness and less shout from the Lowther.Interesting experimental results. This combination just goes to show how delicate it is to drive a pair of Lowthers correctly. Too much microdynamics can actually make the Lowthers do some excessive "ringing", which is to say it excites resonances that you don't want to hear. There is a correct amount that my phono system seems to get about spot on. The CD player is now "bracketed". With the 27 line stage added it is too much and it causes excessive shouting effects, even at lower volume levels. With it feeding the TVC directly, it is not shouting at all, and might be considered slow sounding, but I can play it real loud and not shout the Lowthers. Hmmm... how do I optimize that for the middle ground, I wonder?
But I prefer the sound straight into the TVC for now. Much smoother, with more detail coming in without a resonance excitation overtaking the details in the recording, and like I said, it's mesmerizing. VERY 3-dimensional sound, rounded edges, not like cardboard cutouts. It's not the greatest for dance music maybe, but so good for a relaxing sound, like slow moving jazz pieces and rich orchestral works. The tone is beautifully on the nose, too. Horns are remarkable, and astonishingly good for redbook CD I have to say.
With this in mind, I have to say I cannot yet fault the player for doing what it does. I can almost make it do anything in spades, and all this coming from just the RCA outputs. I haven't even tried the balanced outputs yet, and probably never will. The question is what do you connect this player up to? How do you handle the signals it gives you? It can be quick, high paced and edgy to downright slow and sluggish, depending on the type of load and downstream components that are placed in there. My guess is that if you don't like this player, you might want to think about what's wrong with some other part of your system, at least from the line stage onward. I don't know where the negative comments are coming from. It's not weird to me, it only seems to show what's weird about what the rest of the system is doing. How else am I able to make this player out to sound so different in so many configurations? It must be pretty balanced and neutral sounding in the first place, IMO. YMMV.
I have an idea. The 27 linestage features a step attenuator of fixed resistors. I can feed the linestage output (with its 6K output impedance) to the TVC and dial in the optimal turns ratio that sets up well with the Lowthers for pace, timing, and minimal shout combined. Then use the stepped attenuator of the linestage as the volume control as normal. It might be a little stepped up to the amp, or a little stepped down at the TVC. But there I can make a dialed adjustment about the amount of "slowness" to the sound. I'll check it out tonight. Of course I might not like the loss of detail with all this signal processing.
Well, it did it just like I predicted! Man, can I call them, or what? :-)Yes, I was able to dial in the pace, rhythm, and timing, versus the excessive shout from the Lowthers by setting up various TVC turns ratios, and being fed by a 27-based linestage.
And yes, it also goes to show that the 27-based linestage is not as transparent and guiltless as I would have hoped. A lot was lost through this linestage, more than I had anticipated. Loss of detail, depth, and magic. Twas a disappoinment, really. The ultimate answer might appear to be a better linestage, something I'm not sure that will really be transparent enough to make me happy in this situation here. I think the TVC is pretty transparent, even more so in some respects than anything active I've heard.
And, so, I think I've found the winning formula for best sound from CD in my home. CD -> TVC -> 45 SET amp -> horn speakers, from the CD's RCA output and in "Measure" mode. Lovely sound. I dig it.
But it goes away for a few days as I am painting the living room and the stereo is now being torn down.
This is the first player I've had that I felt was worthy of a very transparent interconnect. Before I have used a nice sounding, silky smooth on top kind of IC, the one I used being an old inexpensive Wireworld Eclipse, 1m. That IC would help shut down the digititis coming out of the earlier players. The Ayre is void of digititis completely, unless the CD itself is recorded with it in it. Amazingly enough, a lot of those older CD's did not have a digital artifact like that in them, at least not after coming out the Ayre player.So for this Ayre player, I pulled out all the stops and put in my top gun IC, one that cost me $5 to make. It's a 36-gage magnet wire twisted pair that I solder to Radio Shack gold RCA plugs, in minimal lengths, only to cover the needed distance. In this case, 2.5' was needed. It's very detailed, needs almost no break-in, and is very neutral sounding. For other IC's I have, some are only 1' in length to cover the distance. As a protective shield, I use teflon tubing for the thin gauge magnet wire to go through. Yes there are better IC's that cost a lot, but this has worked so well for me and has sounded better than some $400 IC's I tried, including silver ones that I hated, and it just sounds even mo better the shorter the length I can make it. Easy custom fit IC's of high performance. Why bother with anything else, I wonder?
Hukk
I'm glad you're enjoying the Ayre. I had an older Ayre CX7 -- the last one that came out before the e-upgrade. I traded in that machine for the C5-xe player but later sold that one too. Both models seem to do Redbook well, and I wouldn't quibble with the analogue-like nature of the presentation -- I guess in some ways it's more like vinyl compared to a lot of CD players, and also seemed to make some CDs that sounded harsh on other players that I had owned more "tolerable." Having said this, and I realize that in some circles it may not be fashionable to critique a player (or players, if you include the C5-xe too) that have universally received glowing press reviews, I would like to point out several things that bugged me about these machines. One concerns the transports -- for the very high price of these machines, it is disappointing that better quality transports could not be used, rather than relying on modified CD-ROM or DVD units. Not that they don't do the job, but they are noisy - the CX7 had an annoying swishing noise, and even worse was a random ticking in the C5-xe that I've only heard before in cheap DVD players. The transports and drawer mechanisms did not seem appropriate for machines in this price class. Another annoying thing about the CX7 (not C5-xe) concerned the display - no time remaining indication. The remote controls -- even the new metal ones -- are quirky and somewhat difficult to use -- on the C5-xe remote, I had trouble getting certain modes to work, and occasionally it would freeze up. As for the sound - as you know, both machines have a definite analogue-like quality, however there is a downside -- neither one of these machines made the music very exciting for me -- oh yes, there was excellent dynamic range, soudstage, etc. but in some ways, the music sounded almost too "good" or smoothed over. Something seemed to be missing. The overall effect sort of left me cold, and when I switched in an older Creek CD player that I had, the music seemed brought back to life again, even at the expense of making some of my less well-recorded CDs sound harsher. Interestingly I found this to be true in the C5-xe with the hi-rez formats too. In case anyone is thinking -- "well, I bet he used the single ended rather than balanced outputs", in fact I did use the balanced outputs on both machines, fed to an Ayre AX-7, which is likewise a fully balanced amp. I'm sure there are many people who disagree with my opinion of the Ayre, but I did feel an obligation to offer another viewpoint, especially for folks who may be thinking of buying one. I think there are some excellent not-so-expensive CD players out there now that can give the Ayre and others in this price range quite a good run for the money.
"Something seemed to be missing. The overall effect sort of left me cold, and when I switched in an older Creek CD player that I had, the music seemed brought back to life again, even at the expense of making some of my less well-recorded CDs sound harsher."After thinking over this statement and some listening with phono versus this new CD again, I have to agree in some ways. The missing thing is obvious. It's not phono! It's only CD. I think there's only so much you can do with it. So far this CD is by far the best CD I've enjoyed. Very good long term listening sessions I had with it where before I just turned off the CD players. If you demand a more exciting player you tend to get a player you can only stand to listen for a short period. That's been the case for me so far. But I'll see about it in the long haul.
Until you mentioned it... I had not noticed that it didn't have a time remain readout. But then I had that on my previous Teac T1 and on both Marantz units that I have.... I must just never use it.
But your right about the drive, it can be quite loud whilst reading. I have the non evolution model and my one rocks, gets me singing and everything...
Its a funny old world,
It really is about system synergy. In my previous system consisting of a Mark Levinson 27.5 amp, Bel Canto PrePro, Alon II speakers, Nirvana S-X Ltd. RCA interconnects, and Alon Black Orpheus bi-wired speaker cables, the CX-7 made my system sounded overly bright, lacked bass, no warmth in vocals. I'm sure with speakers and maybe even amps that lean toward the warmer side, the CX-7 would've sounded differently. By the time I changed amps and speakers, the CX-7 was long gone. The system went through more changes over the years, and now it's all tubes everywhere, monoblock amps, CD player, as well as alnico magnet midrange drivers in the speakers. Music reproduce now without any grating digititis. I never thought CD's can sound this good, this inviting, this real. I was always hopeful mind you, but thought I'd have to spend 50K or more to get it. Anyway, do try a CX-7 or CX-7E in your system, you just never know, it might be just what your system needs.
For me and my friends, a CD player absolutely must have the time remaining function. When listening to songs, you need to know how much time is left, not how much time has elapsed.When the CD was invented the whole point was convenience. Sadly, many of today's CD players have lost sight of this. It's like my friend said: If a CD player doesn't have "time remain," why bother? If that's the case, we'll listen to vinyl instead.
Music, anyone?
I have been known to use the 'time remaining' indicator as a timer for cooking rather than the oven's own which ticks quite loudly.If there's a meal needs cooking for 40 minutes for instance I just fast forward a CD till there's 40 minutes remaining and I know I can read or surf the internet until the CD finishes, with the added bonus of not having the oven's grating alarm disturb my harmony.
In fact I think the very survival of CD is dependent on the inclusion of the 'time remaining' indicator on modern players.
Best Regards,
Chris redmond.
Here we go again, lack of countdown clock and the player is discriminated against.This is THE most ridiculous thing I have ever read on this forum. I am surprised anybody would even think about something like this as a showstopper when purchasing a CD player.
If you are looking at the clock counting down while listening to music you and your friends are in this hobby for a wrong reason.
According to your profile, you've been registered since March 2001, and this is the MOST ridiculous thing you've read on this formum in five years and eleven months? Wow! You have read selectively.Ok, just busting you a bit in all good humor - no offense.
But here is my take on this:
Since 1986 when I bought my first CD player, I've used the reverse time function maybe half a dozen times, maybe a dozen, not more. Clearly it's not an indispensible feature for me, but it is helpful to have occasionally for anyone (e.g., let's say you sort of have to pee, but not too urgently, and you're listening to a CD for the first time, and want to know if that song is almost over, in which case you'll hold it, or is a 20 minute jam session, in which case you'll have an accident, or at least get uncomfortable, and the CD case is on the other side of the room?). And for folks who do recording the feature probably is very important. And anyway, why would it be so hard for any manufacturer to include? One thing that pisses me off about this hobby is the widely believed truism that high end audio equipment need not include any convenient features and has license to be as quirky as the manufactures want. I just think that's rubbish. When I complained recently about a bizzare quirk inherent in one of my pieces of equipment, my dealer, who I like for the most part, said that people like me "may not be well suited to own *truly* highend gear"! Now THAT was the most ridiculous thing I had heard in . . . well at least in a few days!
I'm not busting on this player, which I am sure sounds fantastic and generates very high customer satisfaction. But I think Lumy does us all a service when he points out (1) features that are absent on popular players, (2) how easy it would be to include them and (3) how helpful it would be if the mainstream audio media would simply bother to include such coverage in their reviews. Then someone like you, and maybe me, can buy the player anyway and someone like Lumy can avoid it. I don't understand why he's being attacked for that.
I agree that some "hi-end" manufacturers omit standard features and I am against it. I can also see why some can find the countdown clock useful but not to the point of disregarding it as one of the purchase options.
So Ayre forgot about it, oh well, I hope it has a clock forward feature.What is annoying is that someone can repeatedly voice his general opinion on the player based exclusively on this minor feature and never mentions the sound the player produces.
You couldnt be further from the truth.Time remaining allows the listener to 'see' the exact arrangement/structure of every track as they listen. It illuminates the deeper structure of the track beyond the local melody. It is much harder to do without it. With it, it is there in front of you the whole time.
There are liner notes with track lengths printed. Let's say it says "4:50" for a particular track. You see the seconds ticking upward toward 4:50. If you're at 3:50, I think you can rest assured that there will be 1:00 left to go. Always works for me.
So you're staring at the numbers ticking away instead of looking into a soundstage, huh? Oh wait, there IS no imaging and soundstaging in your system! Oh, ok, keep looking at the numbers.
Soundstage, imaging?These dont tell you anything about the arrangement of music. Arrangement is phrasing, bars, beats, chorus, verse, motifs, timing changes key changes, counterpoint. Its called "music" as opposed to audio reproduction.
Thats what 'time remaining' allows you to see. And yes you can do it by checking the total time in the liner notes, but that means having to reference the packaging every time a track starts. With time remaining you look at the player as soon as it starts to see how long it is.
I'm pretty sure that HumanMedia was just joking. Well, at least I hope so...
means it is time to switch to LPs (I assuming that it has a forward time indicator at least).My pet peeves are no direct keypad on the player like SONY use to have and remotes made of cast aluminum and noisy playback -- time to go to harddisk players if you have to put up with noise.
Otherwise, I bet that is an excellent player -- I should be so lucky!
"My pet peeves are no direct keypad on the player like SONY use to have and remotes made of cast aluminum and noisy playback -- time to go to harddisk players if you have to put up with noise"Actually the remote I received has a direct keypad. It's a new design.
Do CD players use similar remote control codes, I found out that my Marantz CD6000 ose remote worked most of the functions on the CX 7 without going to the expense of the special Ayre remote. I just wondered if there was a common code that you could program into some after market remote control.Have fun,
There are two common remote control protocols in use -- Philips and NEC. The Philips protocol (also called RC-5) sends a signal that specifies the device (CD player, preamp, etc.) and then the command (play, stop, volume up, etc.). Almost all of the European manufacturers use the Philips protocol, as do most of the US high-end manufacturers. Therefore, a remote handset that uses the Philips protocol will operate any device that also uses the Philips protocol. The only problem you will run into is that Philips was somewhat secretive about the codes and some manufacturers simply made up their own codes that are non-standard.The NEC protocol works differently, as each manufacturer (Sony, Pioneer, etc.) applies to have their own exclusive ID code. NEC assigns this to them, so there are no duplicates. Each ID code has 256 possible commands, which are made up by each manufacturer. Almost all the Japanese companies use NEC protocol. Typically each manufacturer will have their own ID code for each product category (TVs, receivers, DVD players, etc.) So in this case, as Pioneer DVD player remote will usually operate any model of Pioneer DVD player, but nothing else.
As far as programming an aftermarket remote, all of the Ayre gear uses the Philips protocol, except for our DVD and universal players. These are based on a Pioneer manufacturing kit and therefore use the Pioneer DVD player code using the NEC protocol. Programming the remotes depends on the remote you have. The best place to get info on this is at Remote Central (link below).
Thank you for the reply... I would continue using the Marantz remote that appears to work it fine, but I do have a habit of misplacing them and then I get an earfull from the family because nobody can work the player that they are allowed to touch, the cheaper Marantz.I shall give it a go,
Good to see you back online Charles,
One of the reasons I like the Creek (CD43MkII), it tells you how much time remains -- per cut, or entire disc -- like yourself, this is very important for me. A big negative for players like the Ayre that lack this.
Well, I also think this has a lot to do with system synergy and what you have down the chain. What is down the rest of my chain is extremely energetic - autotransformer volume control, 45 SET, and BD-Design Oris 150 front-loaded horn speakers that are nearly 110 dB sensitive using Lowther/AER PM4A drivers.I want all the detail I can get, the proper tone, and excellent soundstaging. The rest of the chain is so hyped-up in transient reproduction capability that trading those traits in for ultimate PRaT sources could start to put me on edge and grate on my ears, to be quite honest. You don't put on a slamming, edgy player into a Lowther horn and expect an overall balanced sound. It will go hyper on you. At least I think so.
Regarding the transport, etc. I like it much better than my SCD-777ES top loader that looks like it's built like a tank and yet it's the weak link in terms of reliability. So if it works, it works good for me, and if it doesn't, I don't want it. And Ayre has a 2-year warranty on the transport, not bad. What I don't like about it is the new remote they now have that lacks a "skip to next track" button, forward and reverse. That annoys me a bit.
So far, like I said, it's working out for me just fine.
To see what kind of sound that the amp/speaker combo also worked well with, it's my phono: Teres 255, VPI JMW-10, Koetsu Urushi feeding a step-up transformer and a tubed phono stage. Now these components are also not the ultimate in PRaT, although they combine to be pretty darn good at it. These TT components make the tone sound superb with lots of detail and soundstaging. The amp/speaker combo picks up the PRaT, whatever it gets and then some. Lowthers can go overboard on their own, like I said.
< < What I don't like about it is the new remote they now have that lacks a "skip to next track" button, forward and reverse. > >Unless my pain meds are kicking my butt, these should be on your remote. There are the "navigator" buttons (up, down, left, right) in a circle. The up and down are for the volume on a preamp or integrated, and the left and right are for the previous and next functions on the CD player. We figured we'd put the most commonly used buttons in the most accessible location. It should be in the owner's manual also.
I've been wanting to express my sympathies about your accident and current chronic condition, but didn't know what to say exactly. I know what chronic pain is like, and I was once on Vicodin for two years. The doctor refused to let me continue with that medication any further. Now I am using Tramadol, which works okay, but not like Vicodin did. And now the doctor is trying to talk me out of using Tramadol. No way, I used to live without pain relief, and it was not an acceptable quality of life that way.I prefer not to tell everyone in the world about why I need it. But I do. Chronic pain is a bad thing. So I wish you the best, and don't overdo it and lose your hearing like Rush Limbaugh. 1/2 :) What is it that they say? Use it so that your pain level is a "3"?
Kurt
That's not the correct manual for the version I have, apparently. When I get home I'll have a try at those navigator buttons. I thought I already tried those, but I'll do it all over again. Thanks Charles.BTW, I listened again last night with it having 150 hours on it. It's still getting better! I'm loving this thing. I never would have thought that this could come from CD.
Sorry about that. I'm not even sure if the printed manual is the correct version, either. The mold for the old remote broke, so we had to switch to a new version. I'm looking at the files on my computer and I'm not sure that I ever finished the new version of the manual or not.It should be pretty straightforward to figure out, but not quite as straightforward as the old remote. But once you get used to it, it is easier to use.
All of the buttons towards the top are used to operate the CD player, while the buttons toward the bottom operate the preamp (or integrated amp). The dividing line is at the "navigator" buttons that form a circle, and here the functions overlap. The "up" and "down" buttons control the volume on the preamp, while the "left" and "right" buttons control the "previous" and "next" functions on the CD player. 95% of the time, you are just using the four "navigator" buttons to control your stereo.
"Sorry about that. I'm not even sure if the printed manual is the correct version, either."Well I did look at my manual that came in the box. I'm pretty sure it was the same as the website's manual, and showed the old remote control. You might have someone check on that problem. I'm just glad you came through and answered the mystery.
I assume when you say "other player that would give Ayre a run for its money", what you really meant to way was: just get the Rega Saturn and call it a day :D
Good thought...but what I decided to do is keep the Creek as a transport and feed it to an external DAC. As a side comment, I've switched exclusively to headphone listening and am using a HeadRoom "Maxed-out" Desktop with DAC and AKG 701 phones. I suppose you have to get used to headphones, but for me, it's altogether better sound - dynamics, resolution, everything (except I guess soundstage) -- than I got from speaker-based systems. For this reason, I don't miss the Ayre equipment at all. But I think I can do better, and am now contemplating going the balanced route with headphones, which is said to give more a expansive soundstage closer to that of speakers with the benefits of phones. Different strokes...or "whatever floats your boat."
I sold a kilobuck speaker-based system to go to a SOTA headphone rig. It not only costs MUCH, MUCH less, but it also sounds better in most respects. I'm soooo glad I got off that particular hamster wheel. My wife is too. :) Good for you for taking the road less traveled in this hobby.
I'm with you in chosing headphones over speakers.Actually,having speakers in my townhouse is out because of noise issues with the neighbors.My alternative plan is the Rega Saturn as my source with a Chinese tube amp and then the AKG 701.I'm getting exceptional sound quality and tacking into account all the money I saved going without speakers,amps,ect...
lol..funny I went the other way. I use to have a Dynahi (one of the super SS amp) and HD650 with Cardas. and now I am exclusive on speaker, which I find is much much better than headphone presentation. lol..I know if I get a chance to own an HE90 I would probably give up my spker. but only for the Big O :D
Very good in lots of ways, but... left me kind of cold, didn't get my foot tapping. My current CDP (SAT CDfix) isn't as clean, dynamic, detailed - but sucks you in the music better. So it stayed. But vinyl is a whole different story..! =)
First, thank you for the review. It's hard to verbalize this stuff.Second, I have all this vinyl in my collection, but the AX-7 playback is so good that they are not getting much use except for the historic recordings that didn't make it into CD conversion.
You already know all the arguments for balanced operation, so no need to discuss that more. I'm a firm believer in it, and use the best cables I can afford.
I previously had a Sony ES player (forget the name of it, non-SACD type) that was highly favored by me and the press. Built like a truck. Top level unit. This Ayre unit is not cheap, but it is clearly excellent. The Sony unit of course, preceeded the Ayre by a lot of years.
Would there be gains to be had if you added another transformer: push-pull to single-ended in front of the single-ended TVC? The amp is also single-ended. Charlie Hansen, what do you think? I can actually try it with my Lundhall interstage transformers I have, but then I don't have an XLR cable or connector. Maybe just buy the connector, make a short line to the PP-SE transformer, and then an RCA interconnect the rest of the way.
< < Would there be gains to be had if you added another transformer: push-pull to single-ended in front of the single-ended TVC? > >The only way to know for sure would be to try it -- there are so many things in this hobby that don't make sense. But that said, I really can't see how that would gain anything. The big gains are already made inside the CX-7e. The DAC has a balanced output, and our zero-feedback current-to-voltage converter is differential, meaning that it will tend to cancel any digital and/or switching noise. There might be minor gains to be made by having a balanced load on the output stage, but I can't imagine that they would be worth the expense or trouble.
The sounds I am now hearing do not suggest that there is need for any of these extra components in the way. There is a very black background from the RCA jacks, already. I hate adding transformers in the path for nothing, they serve to smear and color the sound more than necessary. I think I will not try it, until some day when I am really bored. Thanks for the response.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: