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Ayre USB DAC


Hopstretch

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Well both of them have very nice brushed-aluminum chassis and almost look like they were made to go with each other. They look extremely silvery together too. :) (Too silvery that I had to tone it down a bit in post-processing.) I think the Ayre looks nice, certainly has a solid build quality. It's also pretty darn big (almost the size of my laptop), I wish it was smaller.

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Wow! Cosmetically the Gilmore Lite is a huge win over the Ayre, which looks like it's in a plastic PC case. I suspect that it looks better in real life. I sure hope it does. ;)

The Ayre looks damn good in real life. Similar aesthetic to the KX-R and MX-R, which are lookers.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So....initial impressions (haven't got a chance to listen until now).

Two things that have nothing to do with sound quality: (1) this thing has only 3 feet?! Two in front and one in back. I almost tipped it over pushing it down to hold it in place while inserting a power cord. Would've been better with 4 feet for the stability. (2) No power switch is lame. It turns on as soon you plug in the power cord. :basement:

As for sound, well I had no idea what to expect. I made sure to configure Foobar2K and ASIO4ALL correctly as outlined on Ayre's Web site and then connected it, using the Gilmore Lite and Qualia.

Then I queued up some reference music tracks and....I'm disappointed. Not that it sounds bad of course, but it's just not as good as my Plinius CD-101. I kinda feel like I'm continually trumping the horn of my Plinius CDP but it really is awesome-sounding and the QB-9 isn't at its level. The QB-9 has less treble quantity, feels just a tad slower, and has less virtual air (as in, the soundstage sounds smaller). It also seems less dynamic - as in, quiet vs loud doesn't exactly have as wide a range as on the Plinius and notes that have sudden intensity on the Plinius sound kinda dull on the Ayre.

I was hoping for awesomeness but got merely only relatively above-average sound. :(

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I was hoping for awesomeness but got merely only relatively above-average sound. :(

Ryan is borrowing Asr's Ayre, and since he was over to pick up an amp last night, we gave the Ayre a quick listen. Basic impression was that it was OK but not great. It was a little flat sounding, and there was an overall fuzzy and unfocused nature to the sound. Bass was there but mushy. At it's price point, I'd guess that it is an OK deal.

To be fair, we didn't do any special computer optimization. Just plugged it in and played FLAC files through Winamp. Though, another USB DAC that just uses a simple USB to SPDIF converter sounded better. That isn't to say that the digital signal was better, but rather that IMO the analog is more important to the overall sound, particularly when there are plenty of easy ways to clean up jitter. So overall, while it didn't sound bad, if I'd just built a DAC that sounded like that, I'd probably keep working on it.

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Ryan is borrowing Asr's Ayre, and since he was over to pick up an amp last night, we gave the Ayre a quick listen. Basic impression was that it was OK but not great. It was a little flat sounding, and there was an overall fuzzy and unfocused nature to the sound. Bass was there but mushy. At it's price point, I'd guess that it is an OK deal.

I concur - this was through Doug's solid state balanced and l'espressivo with 6c45 tubes. I will give it another shot before sending it to Florida to meet up with Asr and I believe I have my foobar already setup software wise that is the "recommended" method for best performance. As of now my silver discs on the 508.24 have a more clear, dynamic sound that has a bit more life.

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So....initial impressions (haven't got a chance to listen until now).

Thanks for your valuable impression. Did you by any chance run your Ayre balanced? What type of power cable did you use? I have had my Ayre amps for a long time and they like to run balanced and they like good power cables. I had a C7xe over for a short while and tried both SE and balanced outputs, and there was a huge difference between the 2 outputs. Knowing Ayre, they are sensitive to balanced config and input power.

Your impression sounded like you were running it in SE, although I could be wrong.

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Thanks for your valuable impression. Did you by any chance run your Ayre balanced? What type of power cable did you use? I have had my Ayre amps for a long time and they like to run balanced and they like good power cables. I had a C7xe over for a short while and tried both SE and balanced outputs, and there was a huge difference between the 2 outputs. Knowing Ayre, they are sensitive to balanced config and input power.

Your impression sounded like you were running it in SE, although I could be wrong.

1. Did you actually read my post #358 or just skim over it?

2. While I like and use a few aftermarket power cords (which are listed in my profile over at HF), I'm going to take a "no comment" position on the power cord question. I don't really believe they make much of a difference especially on a source component (I could believe them being more important on a power amplifier for example).

3. A power cord does not affect how much input power goes into the component that it's plugged into. :palm:

4. I wouldn't say my impressions are very valuable. They were based on a couple hours of listening and I wasn't listening extremely critically either, I was listening only for the most immediately obvious differences.

5. I intend on providing more impressions when I have the DAC back and can try the Listen and Measure settings along with its balanced output. The DAC was set on Listen btw, I didn't note that before.

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