CODA amp No.8, Bryston 4B3, or Ayre VX-5 Twenty

I own the Coda #8 (V1) and it has surpassed my expectations. It's built like a tank and has massive current. Upgrades to the other versions (V1,V2,V3) are free from Coda and it has a 10-year warranty and a 5-year transferable warranty. Lucky for me I live 15 minutes away from their office. I'm driving a pair of Magnepan's with this amp and they sound amazing!

@henrynguyentx I have an Ayre KX-5 Twenty preamp, VX-5 Twenty amp, along with a QB-9 Twenty DAC. For some background, I’ve used (still own) Joule Electra LAP150 tube preamp and Joule Electra VZN-80 OTL amp. Beautiful sound with the Joule gear; however, I acquired a pair of Magnepan 3.7i and needed more power. As I was a "tube guy" I watched a number of YouTube videos of the late Charlie Hansen of Ayre. He was also a "tube guy", but didn’t like the some of the other things that come along with owning tube gear. His goal was for the magic of tubes, but with solid state reliability. One thing he also mentioned, that really made me take notice, was no negative feedback... something that was a big deal with my Joule OTL amp. In my experience, the lack of feedback really adds to the musicality; however, the amp needs to be matched up properly with speakers too.

While owning the VX-5 Twenty with the 3.7i, I came across an opportunity to trade another piece of gear for a Krell FPB-300 amp (monster). It drove the 3.7i with more power... but it was thick as gravy. The magic from the Ayre was missed. Besides, the VX-5 Twenty drove the 3.7i... so there’s that. I ended up moving along the Krell unit and the Magnepan speakers. I’m now playing with Wilson Audio Duette, among other speakers. One thing remains constant... I could not be happier with the Ayre gear. Absolutely musical and "right". There is just something about it that has a rightness that I miss if I plug something else in. I will also add this, stick with the "Twenty" upgrade stuff, or look to have something upgrade to Twenty status, if it isn’t already. The "punch" the gear has from whatever they did with the Twenty upgrade is notable, compared to other gear I’ve used.

Another thing I’ll share that even some Ayre owners may not be aware of, and it’s something that can be incorporated into the VX-5 Twenty and some other pieces of Ayre gear. It’s particularly useful for using 2-way speakers with subs. Ayre has a 100Hz high pass input filter board that can be swapped in, to roll the low end off of 2-way / bookshelf speakers and let subs do that work. I have these boards, although I haven’t tried them yet. Evidently Vandersteen does this quite a bit and folks will spec Ayre gear with those boards to use with those speakers. Since my KX-5 Twenty preamp has 2 sets of balanced outputs, it will work great for sending signal to the VX-5 Twenty, let it high pass to drive the main speakers, and send full range to my dual subs and work the levels / crossover on those. See pics of the boards below.

Others have mentioned integrated from Ayre... I would definitely check those out. In fact, I’m looking at going to some 94.5dB sensitivity speakers and have thought it would be cool if they offered a lower power amp, <50 watts (just because).

In case you can’t tell... I LOVE my Ayre gear and it’s not going anywhere. The only possible way I could move it along is if I borrowed something else that I could listen to here and know for sure it was better... but I want for nothing... I just don’t see that happening.

The Ayre guys are friendly. If you haven’t already, reach out and talk to Jake.

Good luck and Have Fun.

@henrynguyentx I should have added that I suspect you are also on the right path with the Coda #8 stuff... Coda, in general. I went back and forth with Doug Dale at Coda quite a bit. In fact, I made an offer on a "factory refurbished" unit but we couldn't get together on price. As I recall, he suggested the version with highest Class A bias (I suspect he likes that versus the flashy number of lower Class A versions). I’ve seen good feedback about their preamps as well.

As my Wilson Duette are also a 2-way with 8" woofer / 1" tweeter, know that the Ayre VX-5 Twenty will make them JAM... plenty of power for that speaker, with same sensitivity as yours.

Thanks so much for your knowledgeable sharing! You guys are awesome!!

@hsounds Regarding the AX-5 integrated / power difference... which other Ayre amp were you comparing it to?  Was it the VX-5 Twenty?  I have interest in the AX-5 Twenty and EX-8 2.0, as. single box solution.