the preamplifier built in the ayon cd5 is great?

These are the types of preamplifiers I have taken in on trade when customers have borrowed the CD5 and use it as a direct-to-amp substitute.

1. ) Audio Research LS-25
2. ) Wavac PRZ-1
3. ) Mark Levinson 380
4. ) Ayre ( cannot remember model # )
5. ) Hovland HP-100

and a few others.

The preamplifier in the CD5 was made to " replace " your existing preamplifier, not as a thrown in preamplifier until you can save enough money for a real preamplifier like some CD player/ preamp combos did. Part of this has to do with the Ayon simply being a superb preamplifier in the CD5, and some to do with the fact that you are by-passing an entire stage in the chain that is really not needed unless you have many sources.

Will it appeal to every single shopper? No. Nothing ever does, it's a matter of preference as with all things audio, but the last 8 sales of CD5's were by customers who ALL had preamplifiers in their system. I managed to get rid of 5 of them, and still have 3 preamps left to get rid of. This has got to tell you something...... Draw your own conclusions

Check out the Dagodo review. That reviewer rated the CD5's preamp as superior to everything he has heard up to Vac Renaissance Sig (a $14k pre!). I own a CD5. I rate it higher than the Audio Research CD8. In terms of your question "Is is greater than Pass, Levinson.." Audiojudge's response is pretty accurate, although I personally think the Hovland is a lovely preamp. Hope that helps.

From my experience since I own the CD-2, sure the combo sounded better than my Belles 21A Auricap but I'm not at the point of getting rid if my pre because the CD-2 and what I have heard from other CD-5 users is that these unit just doesn't have the gain at moderate levels but beautiful at low volumes. Since we're talking about, I'll do some comparison tonight at low levels since my kids are all tucked in.

Wig, is there a discussion of this that you can point me to? I would think that there would be plenty of gain, more than needed in most applications, with the CD-5. Do you mean that people are winding out the level to the "Max" setting? If so, I would fear they are listening at levels far too high, and run the danger of harming their hearing.

In my use of the CD-5, both during the review with the quite inefficient Kingsound King speakers at about 83dB and afterward, I have not had to push the output level of the player. I do not listen at "live" or "concert" levels, i.e. about 100+dB. I do not consider where I do much listening, at about 88-90dB to be low volume. It's definitely moderate moving toward loud. So, I'm curious about the context of comments that the CD-5 doesn't have the gain for moderate levels. I certainly would not agree with that.

In fact, with the VAC Signature Preamplifier MkII I had too much gain; the combo ran so "juiced" that I had to keep the CD-5 on the low Gain setting (4V) and even then could not take the volume control past about 10 O'clock on the VAC pre. So I'm not sure where this complaint of not enough gain is surfacing.

Is it possible the comment is being made in the context of use of very low power SET amps with the CD-5, maybe with some seriously inefficient speakers? Perhaps with a mismatch between amp and speaker this could come into play, but other than that scenario I would have difficulty seeing someone not getting enough level control from the player. But that might be a problem with an outboard preamp as well; I wouldn't judge the player to have an issue if a system is set up poorly. Again, with the Gain switch on the back of the unit I would think that the CD-5 would have plenty of output. But I'm open to hearing what others are experiencing.

Since when is 8V not enough to drive any amp?

http://www.ayonaudio.com/products/cd-player-dac/cd-player/cd-5.html