Ayre Codex - to keep or not to keep

The Ayre Codex was one of the more problem ridden audio products I ever brought. I purchased my new unit (a 230-volt unit in my country) in February this year from the authorized distributor of Ayre in my country. Shortly thereafter I found that it has serious issue hooking up to my RHA MA750 in-ear-monitor. It was as if the sound coming from the unit was disjointed and covered with a serious noise or haze. I emailed Ayre but never got a reply. That said, the unit works perfectly with my two other full sized headphones, so I dismissed the issue as an isolated incidence just not working with a particular phone.

Two months later, the unit just goes away on its own and failed to be power on. I took it back to the authorized distributor and they did the repair. However, when I took back the unit, I found the volume knob which incidentally was designed to select input sources, etc., failed to response when dialed. So, I took it back to the authorized distributor the second time for another repair. Everything seems fine again afterwards.

The unit has another power on failure three months thereafter, so for yet another time I took it back to the authorized distributor for repair. This time round, I inquired the technician doing the repair work of the reasons for the past failures and his repair work carried out, but he was not willing to release further information other than that the previous failures were due to some internal components being dislodged. This time round of repair, he did some additional soldering work to reinforce the unit for proof against future failure.

I have not dropped the unit, opened the unit nor inflicted any damage which I could discern. My old Rotel amp brought when I first began my audio journey have served me for 20 years without failure before I sold the unit. So, my best guess is somehow I got myself a Codex unit with some sub-standard soldering work. The unit does seem to work faultlessly after the third repair. However, the sequence of failures has caused me to have lost confidence, and likely I will put up an auction for sale at a low starting price in the near future.

I choose the Ayre Codex in the first place partly because I listen to headphones and it has balanced headphone out. Had I given the opportunity to choose again with hindsight, I would have gone for one of the PS audio unit, possibly the now discontinued PS audio NuWave DSD or the newer Stellar DAC. To these untrained years, the PS units have more upfront presentation but share the tonality akin to the Ayre Codex. The PS units may be a little less resolving than the Ayre Codex but seems to have better corporeality to its imaging, and comes with a cheaper price tag too.