Integrateds: Luxman vs. Ayre?

@ghdprentice 

Interesting. I like the 'sparkle' that Luxman has. Although I rarely listen to 'heavy' rock and roll, when I do, I have found some amps to be dull sounding. The Luxman sounds wonderful with every type of music, is what I am trying to say.

As for the OP - I don't think the Ayre DAC is going to be better then the Mytek. I have yet to hear a 'built-in" DAC that sounds as good as a stand alone one.

@ghdprentice 

Would the old word for sparkle  be bright? There has  been a trend in hifi the last number of years in my opinion  towards brightness in the equipment.  

In my listening to Ayre vs. Lux, McIntosh, Naim, and Bryston, Ayre comes out on top for transparency, clarity, imaging, and control.  Naim feels more dynamic or punchy, but Ayre out points in all other areas.  This is based on their lower tier separates using their CD player.

For me, Unless you are fine with ugrading, I’d avoid buying a pre/integrated with a DAC Built in. Sure you can always bypass, however, in years time you will hear about the latest and greatest DAC and then you’ll be back to two units again. I'd keep the LUXMan or go with another dedicated PRE without digital, then upgrade your dac as you see fit. 

Ayre DACs can certainly be endgame. I wouldn't be worried about that.

The nice thing about the EX-8 is that it has a pass-through mode which sets the amp to unity gain. A good feature to have since you're integrating it with the MRX540.

Note that the Luxman also has pre-outs which are functionally equivalent to the pre / sub outs on the Ayre.

I used to own several pieces of Ayre gear - AX-5 Twenty, C-5xeMP and QB-9 DSD. All were exceptional. I did find that I gravitated more towards certain types of music genres like classical and jazz when they were in my systems.