Chord Dave or Ayre QX5 Twenty DAC???

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

I'd never use a digital pre.  The Ayre's digital pre is about as good as I've heard and it's still not even close to using the pre on my AX5/20.  I've had the Dave in my own system a couple of times and I've listened with borrowed LCD3's and the top Hifiman can's (don't love them like so many do).  I like the headphone amp on the Ayre much better.  It's just a more coherent sound than the Dave IRT to the bass.  I've spoken to a couple of DAC designers now and they feel the same way.  I love the Totaldac and if it was money no object and I had a set of Vandersteen 7's with reference amps/pre, then I'd get the Totaldac that is twice the price of the Ayre and much more expensive than the Dave. Again, I think it's a great product and whoever owns one will love it for a long time, but to ME, the Ayre gives me similar great mids and highs along with deeper and just as musical bass.  I could have afforded the Dave and that's why it was in the house.  It has a certain charm about it that most other just done.  Honestly, I like the Ayre, TotalDac, Dave, Trinity ref and a few others better than I like the Rossini.  The Rossini to me, like all the DCS DAC's are a tad dry.  Accurate as heck and excellent DAC's (better be for that money), but they are not as musical to MY EARS as a Dave or QX5/20 or TotalDac.  I know that I"m not the only one who feels this way either.  

JMHO

I am an Ayre dealer. One great feature of the QX-5 is the network input. This is the way I demo. I use a high end network extender with a Cardas network cable straight into the back of the QX-5. Then I use Roon from a laptop in the back of the room. I am not sure anyone talked about this important aspect of the Ayre DAC. Oh and all of the spdif inputs are excellent as they use a type of buffer... 

Welcome to the thread.  Yes, we've discussed the network input.  To me, it sounds it's best when fed via the optical converter with a good LPS on the DAC side of things.