Help pick an amp

**JonMarsh** · 04 April 2002, 21:05 Thursday

Brandon,

Where does your friend live? I note that your email address implies you're in Tokyo- is that corrrect?

For anyone shopping for an amplifier in the price range you're discussing, I really think they owe it to themselves to hear an Ayre V-5 or V-6 (the latter is multichannel). Though I build a lot of my own gear, including amps, I purchased a new V-5 last year. The newest issue of The Perfect Vision has a review of the V-6- quite favorable, I might add.

Other amps to listen to would be the Theta Intrepid and Dreadnaught, and the big BAT solid state amp.

A common theme here is no loop feedback.

A several of my audio inclined friends have auditioned the Ayre at my recommendation- all have purchased. So be careful.

In Japan, Ayre is available through

Stellavox Japan, Ltd.
51-10 Nakamaru-cho
Itabashi-ku, Tokyo 173-0026
Japan
ph: +81-3-3958-9333
fax: +81-3-3958-9322

Best regards,

Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**Brandon B** · 04 April 2002, 22:43 Thursday

Oops. Moved home from Tokyo 9 months ago. I'll go fix my profile. My friend and I are both in Los Angeles.

I'd forgotten about the Ayre amps, I've read your discussions of them.

If he went with those, do you think he'd have much to gain bi-amping, and would it be overkill to use an Ayre on the bass?

BB

**Markj** · 04 April 2002, 23:06 Thursday

I have listen to the Dreadnaught many times and have been very impressed with the quality of sound. The nice thing about this amp you can start off with two channels and then latter add channels when your friend move into HT. I should mention that I own the pre amp Casablanca so I might be biased.

**Lex** · 05 April 2002, 11:39 Friday

I have really enjoyed my Proceed Amps. (HPA-2, AMP-5) Jon tells me, go listen to an Ayre, or a Theta. Well, I would, but.... Sometimes, we have to be happy with things as they are. This is one of those times for me.

How about the Sonus faber Cremona for speakers? Oh my, these things are breathtaking! @ around 7500 bucks, look to be a veritable steal- Or if money is no object, the 22,500 Amati Hommage should get the job done.

Lex

**JonMarsh** · 05 April 2002, 12:26 Friday

If you're just talking about "bi-wiring", with separate inputs to the passive crossovers connected to different amps, I'd suggest trying just an Ayre first, by itself. There's 16 output devices in each channel; they're OK with difficult speaker loads, though for thermal reasons they're only FTC rated down to 4 ohms.

If it's a true biamping setup, crossover and sub, pick the crossover very carefully, or use one just to fill in the lowest registers of the main's. I have a Sumiko Delialah that's pretty cool (also not available anymore); it's NLFB on the HP (but bufffered), has variable frequencies on HP and LP, and two polarities of bass output drive, so you can bridge and mono bridge.

In Sourthern CA, Ayre is at

Encinitas
Passion Audio
119 North El Camino Real
Suite G
Encinitas, CA 92024
ph: 760-633-1966
fax: 760-633-1330

San Rafael
Kepke Audio Video Design
120 Garden Ave.
San Rafael, CA 94903-4220
ph: 415-472-3290
fax: 415-479-0330
email: bernie@kepke.com

Santa Monica
Optimal Enchantment
522 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
ph: 310-393-4434

By all means listen to some BAT and Theta gear, too. But I think you may find your friend prefers the Ayre after some critical listening. The V-6 can be purchased with any number of channels he wants to start out with, and upgraded from there, up to six channels. It's a skosh heavy, like the Dreadnaught and the big BAT. There's a review of the V-6 in the April-May "The Perfect Vision".

Regards,

Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**LarryB** · 05 April 2002, 18:43 Friday

Brandon:

As I think very highly of Ayre products, I'll second that recommendation.

John:

Thought you'd be interested to hear that I compared the DACS available in the D1 to the Levinson 360S, and I preferred the Ayre. As I currently have a DAC-less D1, and use a Levinson 360 for processing, I am thinking about switching.

Larry

**Lex** · 05 April 2002, 23:23 Friday

Any day now I expect John to come on like the Gentleman from Remington and say:

I liked the Ayre so well, I bought the company.

Lex

**JonMarsh** · 06 April 2002, 13:08 Saturday

:LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

Well, Lex, the guy who does own most of the company and runs and designs the gear (Charles Hansen) used to work for me when he was a physics student at CU, and he used to introduce me as the Grandfather of Avalon Acoustics because of some prototype speakers I gave him when I got married (wife couldn't stand them- 180 lb each in basic black, but this is where Avalon's construction style started).

I have not been completely enamoured of all Ayre products; the first amp didn't really do a lot for me; it used IR FETs and the driver stage couldn't really handle the input capacitance; HF performance suffered and distortion a little. But also, the source components available at that time (mid nineties) probably didn't really do it justice; Chas used a CAL audio CD unit with a passive preamp.

The VX1 used FET's I suggested to him, from England (of all places), which I'd used successfully on a pro amp design. The VX1 incorporated some interesting updates to the voltage regulator circuits, including a clever way to make a FET based reference. Like it's predecessors, it uses a choke input power supply, for very quiet AC rails and ground.

The V5 and V6 is a real break with tradition for Chas, because at one time he never thought he'd ever use bipolars- but he's getting a little more open minded, I guess. He originally thought of them as more a "bang for the buck" product, (which they are, pricing wise, for Ayre), but after we came up with the neutralization scheme that allowed driving capacitive loads without an inductor, (used it first for the MOSFETs from England), the V5 (with the Ayre "Power conditioning" was the best sounding amp in their lineup. The power conditioning has been applied to other models since then - the X mod.

Larry:

I'm not to surprised to hear your comments about the D1 DAC's- I think they're very, very good. Also, you'll always get the absolute best performance with an integrated solution with common clocks. If you upgrade, I think you'll be very pleased, especially as you have time to listen to a variety of music. As I commented on a thread in the "In tunes" section, the D1 is still the best CD player I've heard (now, I haven't heard everything by any means, but it certainly should be on anyone's audition list. I'm looking forward to finding out how the CX-7 does- Chas is pretty pleased with himself about the "bang for the buck" factor with that unit).

-Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**LarryB** · 08 April 2002, 09:56 Monday

Jon:

I'm looking forward to finding out how the CX-7 does- Chas is pretty pleased with himself about the "bang for the buck" factor with that unit).

Did you mean the new AX-7 integrated, or is there another product I'm not yet familair with?

Larry

**JonMarsh** · 08 April 2002, 15:03 Monday

The CX-7 is an integrated CD player with cosmetics and form factor very similar to the AX-7.

I tend to thing of these as real "music lovers" components; not mega power, or audio jewelry, but a lot of transparency into the musical event.

My idea of personal affluence would be if I were able to afford these for my bedroom system, though I have the feeling the CX-7 may set a new standard for price/performance in CD playback, wherever it's used. We'll see!

-Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

Help pick an amp

Help pick an amp

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