Amp upgrade from Ayre V-5xe

A VX-5 Twenty  just has been listed for sale with a nice discount.

One of the reasons Ayre made quick  update ( twenty version) of his diamond output amps, is because they had trouble with overheating. The 20 versions runs cooler.

More and more of those popping on the used market, I guess they are not as peformant as the review says. Users must be upgrading for the better VX-R series. Or something Luxman, Gryphon, etc.

one of the reasons Ayre made quick  update ( twenty version) of his diamond output amps, is because they had trouble with overheating

I don’t think that’s quite right, certainly not the full story. Yes, the originals ran hot but what evidence do you have that it was to the point of overheating?

Meanwhile, you can read about the changes and the motivation here:  Ohttps://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/658-ayre-acoustics-ax-5-twenty-integrated-a...

You have to read between the lines... Ayre was always about long duration version of its units. This time with the non twenty versions, they did something that was totally unusual for this company, they rushed an update ( the twenty version) of the 5 séries. You have to think... why they did not go with the twenty version in the first place if it was so much better than the non 20. Single diamond output vs double diamond output, don’t make me beleive they did not compare and test those before releasing the X5 series...

The thing is there was owner reports of the non 20 version shutting down on heat protection.

Hey @techno dude. Where do you the VX-5 on sale? Are you talking about the general Ayre moving sale they are offering on all their products?

reports of the non 20 version shutting down on heat protection.

Well, that’s compelling evidence of a problem that needed to be fixed but the Twenty version is so much more than addressing excess heat. And it’s obvious on face value that they did not have the original and the Twenty versions to compare when they introduced the series. It appears that the Twenty came at a time of rapid advances in their circuit design. Being upgradeable, why wait if a substantial performance gain can be had? IIRC, the R series was soon thereafter updated to Twenty series because the “affordable” 5s had nearly closed the gap sonically.