Next upgrade, DartZeel or Ayre

Well, I made up my mind and went to a completely different direction.

I heard the Ayre combo a few times in dealer, I was not impressed. I don't expect to hear all the qualities in a dealer show room, but I also don't expect them to sound flat or even bad. I am sure they will sound better at my house, but everything sounds better at my house and I don't have time to bring home every piece to try.

I am sure Dartzeel is great too, but Dartzeel is slightly out of my reach financially even in used market.

So instead I went with another great pre amp from Germany to match my phono stage. It shares the same shunt volume control design as Ayre, in fact I believe this manufacture invented this design. It's tube base, so it has more bloom and air. Time will tell if the sound really fits my taste, but I know Ayre is not for me at this point.

Just stop. Glad you're happy; move on.

Semi, care to share a bit more about your new preamp...the name, manufacturer, cost ?

Thanks

Cost about the same as Ayre KX-R, but quite a bit cheaper than Dartzeel. I ordered an Einstein pre which has tremendous dynamic, transparency, and extension, but the most important thing is it sounds like music especially with the right tube. Einstein also employs the volume control outside of audio signal to maintain signal integrity, I believe they invented and implemented the concept first.

To Bar81, this is a forum to exchange idea and share your experience. I believe your last post did nothing positive to the forum. I have no issue when people don't like the gears I own, I know everyone has his/her preferences. Yes, I am glad I found something I liked and glad to know you also found something you like, and yes please move on and stop wasting bandwidth of this thread so people can actually learn something from this thread.

Nobody is learning anything from your posts other than you seem to be hell bent on trashing Ayre when you have zero credibility with the product. Take your own advice.