Advantages of a tube CD player over an SS player?

I know you have a hard time where you live an need to make the best choice you can. I may have another option for you. Cary has made some CD players that give you a lot of choices. They have tube CD players that let you select either the tube output section or solid state. Not only that, you can also select if you want to upsample or not; and pick different upsample rates. I think they even give you a volume control to drive a power amp directly. If you can find a good deal on something used, it may be worth looking into. That said, I never recommend things I haven't heard myself. I have listened to several Cary players and I was always impressed with them.

As far as the 2 players you mention, I haven't heard the Ayon, so I can't comment on it. It does look like a great CD player, and I would be surprised if I didn't like it. The Ayre I've heard many times and love it. If I was looking for something in that price range, I would buy it. Ayre is also extremely good about offering upgrades to their current products, as opposed to just coming out with new models. I do own some Ayre gear and its definitely my favorite brand for solid state.

Zd542,, Thank you again for you advice. It always has been helpful. I have considered the Cary CD players. I believe the series are: CD300-200; CD-300-300. I have also e-mailed them about these players, but all have been discontinued. I have read all the reviews on the above two models, and the feature of changing sampling rate seem a bit hokey to me. Though, "some" claim it did make a difference in the sound especially with a variety of CD formats. The upsampling selection can also be made from the remote. However, I will check them out again, but to be honest, I think I am sold on Ayre CX-7emp, but almost none have come up for sale in the last three months. Thanks again, Jim

Get the Ayre player or a real tube player, I also owned a cary upsampling cd player before, the cd 500 solid state player, was the worse sounding player to date that I have owned!, hope this helps, cheers.