Chord Dave or Ayre QX5 Twenty DAC???

Has anyone tried the Ayre with headphones directly or through the analog outputs into a high-end headphone amp? Thanks.

Why would anyone use another HP amp with it?  It's the best HP amp I've ever used. I've heard it balanced once as I don't personally have balanced cables yet for my IEM's, but I love it though the single ended jack.  They took painstaking time and effort to make the amp and they had nearly carte blanch when designing it.  It's truly a word class HP amp that eventually should get it's due.  The Codex has a really nice HP amp, but this one is leaps and bounds above that.  I like it much better than any of the Woo amps, that I feel are very good amps.  

Just found out the Ayre QX5 Twenty is releasing an update this week with full MQA decoding & I just bought the Dave and an Aurender. Oh well, I hope I am happy with that, could have saved money though. 

I'm sure you will love the Dave.  Been using the headphones with the QX5 as I wait for my speaker to ship this week.  Best headphone amp I"ve heard by far and I've heard the TOL Woo amps, I just sold off my STax Lambda's (have a portable amp for them if anyone has interest, lol).  Unfolding the first layer of MQA should make a nice difference as I stream a ton of Tidal.  

Funny as I have a friend who just got the QX5 over the Dave. He spent two weeks with both in his house and felt the QX was just overall better, especially in the bass which is the difference I have heard.  We all hear differently so Im' sure you liked the sound of the Dave over the Ayre.  Enjoy :)

ctsooner

You mentioned in this thread that you liked the DAVE midrange and top end, but felt the bass was not the last word.
Are you comparing the bass from the Digital Pre through a two channel set up or are you evaluating it through headphones?

Thx

Kerry