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

Charles gave me the tip to reduce internal vibration of the V-5xe cooling device to tape it with a clear cellofane.

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.

Frankpiet,

I've heard the top-of-the-line Boulder linestage and phono stage in a system with other components which I have some familiarity. The system sounded very smooth, pure and sweet, but it also seemed to lack the dynamics and liveliness that are the hallmarks of the rest of the components. Because systems are tricky to evaluate, I cannot say that this is an inherent characteristic of the Boulder components. I am just bringing this up for you to consider when evaluating the Boulder integrated.

By the way, the flexibility, controllability and ease of use with the Boulder gear was up there at the very top (similar to Levinson, BAT and the VTL 7.5).

Larryi: a friend of mine owns a Boulder 2008, 2010, 2020, 2050 set-up connected with TaraLabs Zero and Omega cords to a pair of Acapella Sphäron Excalibur speakers, cd-drive is Barclay X-1, turntable is Micro Seiki SX 8000 MK II - never ever heard music reproduction like this. Better than life like - o.k. the set-up is worth € 550.000,- but o.k. If the 865 integrated is at least able to reach 75% of the top-components - I´m very very happy.