2. digital
  3. 124453-113

Ayre now has a new QX-5 all in one

box with DAC/Streamer (Tidal etc), Roon ready. It has nearly any input and a great headphone amp too.  It can also be used as a preamp, although I personally have yet to hear any digital pre sound as good as a great preamp, but that's me.  It's all balanced and has the Ayre power supply filters that all the Ayre products have.  I can't wait to hear it. I personally am running a great sounding Empirical Audio OSDE/SE with all the upgrades from Steve and I also have a Mac Mini server that Empirical totally rebuilt with a separate Hynes linear power supply.  It's full of only hi rez, well recorded music of all genres.  I love it, but the new servers do sound a bit better, so I've been looking.  I didn't want to set up a NAS, but since I run a Linn DS system in the bedroom I'm open to it.  I love the Melco NAS and may just get that for my NAS and the Ayre for everything else.  I want a simple, one box solution and I do use IEM's and cans on Sunday and Sat mornings so having a great amp solution in my main rig is enticing too.

I rn an Ayre AX-5 Twenty with Vandersteen Treo's (going to sell so I can upgrade to the Quatro's) and Basis/Aesthetix's for vinyl.  Pretty exciting times in digital.  I'm sure that Ayre will be a great value for all that it offers and it should sound incredible.  Time will tell.
128x128ctsooner
ejr1953
918 posts
 
I know this forum is about an Ayre product, but I see some interesting postings about MQA.

Interesting that Warner is dipping their toe into the MQA pond.  I see that Tidal will be distributing MQA, I wonder if they will do the conversion to some other "generic" PCM format in the Tidal software, or whether they will output MQA and you'll need an MQA-capable DAC to get the benefit of the new format, or both?

An old friend of mine used to complain that the record companies ask you to buy the same music over and over again, first on vinyl, then on cassette/8 track, then on CD, then on hi-res digital, again on vinyl, etc.  From what I read in the rags, about 60% of purchased music are remasters of previously-available tracks.  I could see how MQA sales would be another source of revenue for the industry, but will it be mainstream enough to be worth the investment?  Only time will tell.
yage
401 posts
 
Looks like the QX-5 Twenty will have digital volume control after all. I think this makes it an interesting choice if you have an all-digital library. QX-5 Twenty + VX-5 Twenty should make for a great combination.

Re: MQA - my guess is that record companies would mainly be interested in this from the marketing aspect - look it's 'high-res' (even though it seems to be a 'lossy' codec) but backwards compatible with all existing hardware as well as compact enough for streaming services. There's a lot going for it, but in the end, it's all a numbers game. Sonic performance is not necessarily the prime motivation.
ctsooner's avatar
ctsooner OP
2,480 posts
 
The price will be 8,950 list.
ctsooner's avatar
ctsooner OP
2,480 posts
 
Yes, I forgot to put that in, sorry.  I have a great digital/analog volume control on my current DAC,however I don't use it.  I personally have done a fair amount of A/B with this route and have found that if you have a great preamp, the sound is much better.  To me (and anyone else I was doing this with, it wasn't close).  That's just use though.  Maybe this will be a game changer on that.
scottsol's avatar
scottsol
1 posts
 
The North American debut of the QX-5 will be at Audio Consultants (I work there) in Evanston Illinois ( Chicago area ) on Saturday June 18 from 11 to 5. Alex Brinkman of Ayre will be there to demonstrate the unit and answer questions.

The QX-5 will make it's next appearance the following Saturday at Music Lovers in Berkeley California.



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