ESOTERIC X-03 VS. AYRE C5XE

Golfish, I had the wonderful opportunity of auditioning the C5xe and the X-03 side by side with Brooks Berdan himself when he was considering which, if either line he would carry. The C5xe was chosen independently by us both so I bought one and he chose to carry it over the Esoteric. Not because the X-03 was inferior but because the C5xe had the more analog sound. I think that is because the Ayre rarely "upsamples" the signal so it is less processed. But you could hardly go wrong with either player. It is (surprise surprise) a matter of taste.

I own the C5 and think it is outstanding. The real surprise of this unit is its ability to make Redbooks sound so good. I have many Redbooks that sound better than SACD or AudioDVD. I've compared the sound of my VPI Sig with Benz Ebony and often the CD is even better sounding. One caveat... the Ayre is very picky about scratched CD's - simply won't play them properly (skips, etc). I burn a fresh copy from the "bad" one which works well again.

Ayre C-5xe is the best digital player that I have heard in my twenty years audio life.

I totally agree with Sylinnian. I had a DV-50, and had it modded by Refrence Audio Mods. It was better, but when I borrowed an Ayre C5XE, it simply blew the DV-50 away. I am impressed with its performance on every digital audio format, and am really pleased with its "redbook" standard CD playback. Another thing I have not heard mentioned is its ability to deal with "problem discs". It has played such discs flawlessly, including some that would skip tracks, or make static-like noises on certain passages. It is simply a great universal player, and quite unique. I wonder why is is so rarely discussed in this forum.

I´d like to throuw in two other pieces out of german production: T&A as well as AudioNet - very well build, very reliable and very nice to listen to..