Ayre QB-9 USB DAC

Jylee,

It would seem your terse remarks are directed at me. And I don't really understand your tone. I did not "resurrect" this thread to promote the Tranquility DAC! I posted my remarks after I bought an Ayre QB-9 and conducted two months of A/B comparison to the Tranquility. I've learned much from fellow audiophiles and I try to offer my views, where appropriate, when I can.

I suggest you try to give the Tranquility and Ayre pieces a listen. Or try to be open-minded enough to defer evaluation to folks that have.

My comments are not directed at specific member. Rather I was commenting on the "situation" in this thread. Personally I would care less if Tranquility is the best thing since sliced bread or not. Some prefer NOS DAC. Some prefer Sony PS1. Some prefer Bose sound. To each his own.

What I was trying to point out was the manner the comparison was presented. As I see it two cardinal audiophile rules were violated.

1. giving an unsolicited advice.
2. comparing product you own against product you haven't heard.

No, there are no such written rules and I'm only half serious. I cringe every time someone does that. For example,

user1: "I just bought a CD player XYZ and it's great!. Has anyone heard this before?"
user2: "Player XYZ sucks compared to ABC that I own."

user1: "Has anyone compared amp AAA and BBB?"
user2: "I own AAA and it's better than BBB"
user1: "Have you auditioned BBB?"
user2: "No"

QB-9 has better timbre than the tranquility. Also the clarity is more refined and is ultimately more relaxed but not in loss of resolution way.

I posted earlier about my experience with a shoot out between the Bel Canto 3 dac with battery supply, the Ayre QB-9 and the Wavelength Crimson Dac.  All these were connected to Ayre MX-R reference amps and preamp and the Strativati Homage Loudspeakers. Over $250,000.00 worth of gear. The source was an IMac using optical fiber feed to the DAC's. This was at a high end dealer private listening room in Manhattan in New York City.
There was no question or difference of opinion about the differences between these DAC's. The Bel Canto presentation was ok but lacked timbre and soundstage, but was still good with a very black low noise floor. The Ayre was listenable but lacked width and depth of soundstage. The Wavelength was wonderful. It had real musicality with great imaging and really was close to the best vinyl which is very hard to achieve. I would buy this dac in a heartbeat. I have heard many other so called great DAC's and I have owned several and none under 6k have bested the Wavelength.