Ayre V-5xe best tube pre-amp to match with?

The following mods were done to V-5xe and K-5xe:

adding of damping material (case work); set of three Stillpoint Universal Resonance Dampers underneath each unit; one Shakti Stone on top of the V-5xe; replaced the cheap fuses with high-quality gold-silver ceramique fuses; replaced power inlet with a high-quality cryo treated gold-silver one; use of Walker E-SST on all contacts (fuse contacts as well); replacement of Diodes, etc. with highest quality parts; taping of the cooling device of the V-5xe (tip from Chrles Hansen) - total amount for the K-5xe US $ 900,00.

Hi Frankpiet,

>> taping of the cooling device of the V-5xe (tip from
>> Chrles Hansen)

I didn't quite understand this part. Can you please elaborate? Thanks!

Good to hear that you found a satisfactory way to upgrade your sound. If you like a particular manufacturer's sound, it makes sense to stay within the family. The approach of trying to compensate for one perceived weakness by finding a component with the "opposite" characteristic usually does not work, at least not predictaby. I like your approach of upgrading the existing components which you happen to like.

By the way, although I am a tube person, I do like the sound of Ayre gear even though they don't sound remotely like the tube gear I have.

Larryi, yes you are right. The next upgrade will be either a bigger Ayre pre-amp (hopefully Charles will design a more appealing (to the eye) successor to his sonically very good but designwise very poor K-1xe or I will upgrade to the forthcoming Boulder Series 800 integrated and get rid of my Ayre Series 5 pre-power combo.