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Audiogon rocks with.......

Met a member last night and he came over today with his Ayre V5x amp,a beauty.We put in my system,Merlin VSM-MM,Counterpoint preamp,MSB dac modded by Modwright,Panasonic DVD,modded by EVS and Cardas wires.It was very transparent,dynamic,you could see deep into the music,just a little too much,but not alot,of glare,I think we thought,compared to my modded Counterpoint amp.I am lacking clean AC and my room is not acoustically together,but it was alot of fun and very interesting for both of us.I would like to buy the amp,but something needs to be done to make it a perfect match for my system.We both thought tubes could be good,and I forgot to add the speakers have just 90-100 hours on them,so not yet broke-in.It was a rare pleasure to met a local audiophile and friend.Cant wait till our next demo,thanks Art....Bob
usblues
ejlif's avatar
ejlif
1,377 posts
 
Let the speakers break in fully before you make any big decisions. I have recently broken in two different sets of new speakers and was reminded of how big of a deal this can be. In both cases the speakers were univolving until they played for at least 200 hours. I had them in a separate room and let them play loud 24/7. I would walk in and check out the sound each day. With both speakers there was a point where something had just happened from the day before and things began sounding right.

I'd bet a lot of guys end up selling off speakers that they would eventually love if they just had put more play time on them. It's tough when they are in the living room and the whole house is affected by playing them loud full time.
sean
6,231 posts
 
Going from Counterpoint components to most of the newer Ayre gear would be a major step forward, at least in my opinion.

One thing that you might want to try, and this may sound "weird" or "over the top" to some, is to try damping the tubes. Have you ever heard someone refer to "glare" or "hardness" in the upper mids / lower treble region as sounding "glassy"? Figure it out how / where that term came from. Microphonic tubes introduce ringing and smearing into the system.

Other than that, you may have some impedance matching problems between the Counterpoint preamp and the Ayre amp. We went through the same thing with my Father's system when he was using a Counterpoint pre. I replaced it with a used $200 SS preamp and the results were staggeringly superior in every respect. While cabling can be a "band-aid" for such a problem, one would really need to find components that were either more stable and / or more suitably matched in terms of impedances.

I would also give the speakers a little more settling time and / or look elsewhere in the audio stream for problems. The tweeter that Bobby uses is known for being merciless in terms of revealing high frequency flaws. The use of the Ayre Acoustics ( imagine that?!?! ) disc may work wonders for your system in this regards.

Out of curiosity, are you using the EVS modified Panasonic DVD as a player or as a transport for the Modwright MSB DAC? Sean
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usblues OP
1,217 posts
 
Interesting idea's guys,thanks.Am using the Panasonic as a transport Sean,though when I got it from EVS a couple of months ago,I remember Ric saying he recommends using it as a player,though I cannot remember why.As usual you are right about the Ayre being a step up.It was real musical and dynamic,would like to play it again in a few months.Bob
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