Some of Stereophile's reviews and follow up reports:

http://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/840/index.html

http://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/840/index5.html

http://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/840/index6.html

http://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/840/index7.html

Plus the follow up in this month's issue.

Art Dudley has discussed it on occasion by comparing it to other players. Though I STRONGLY disagree with his assertion that it sounds better than the more expensive C-5xe. I've done the comparison many, many times with other people and have never run into anyone else who believed the C-7xe was better than the C-5xe.

The MP version is incredibly new. I don't think that too many dealers (if any have) have received them yet. In fact the Ayre web site is yet to be changed to reflect the coming change.

In general Ayre products take a bit longer to break in than most players. At least 150 hours for the major changes with smaller changes occurring after that until at least 300 hours.

Ayre products do sound their best when left on at all times but in my experience that isn't outside the ordinary. Most, in fact NEARLY all solid state gears sounds best after it has been powered up for several hours. In fact Charlie Hansen's decision to NOT include a power switch on the K-5xe preamp is a subtle hint that he feels that electronics should be left on at all times for the best sonic performance. I'd bet that the only reason that the CD players have power buttons is to turn them off while listening analog sources.

Both of Ayre's CD players are incredible sounding compared to the competition at the same prices. They sound effortless, letting the music flow un-hindered and conveying micro-dynamics with ease. Their openness in the high frequencies is also of particular note. Ayre equipment also has a way of allowing the listener to enjoy flawed recordings without sugar coating them nor calling undue attention to the recording's problems. Something that very few products can do.

For one thing, why would you unplug it in normal circumstances? When turned "off" it is really in standby; critical circuits are always on. If power interruptions are the issue (i get a lot of them out where I live...), my solution is to plug my CD players and turntable and preamp into a 1200VA battery-backup unit; this will keep them on for an hour or longer during a power interruption.

I have the C5, personally, and it is definitely better-sounding than the C7, but the price point is certainly different. There are about 6 CD players that have received excellent reviews at around $3000. I would certainly research all of them as much as possible.

I would also point out that if you are planning on spending $3000 for ANY CD player, you should definitely have a BALANCED input on your preamp to connect it to, since unbalanced connections will give much poorer performance in almost all cases. It is really a waste of money, in my opinion, to spend that kind of money on a CD player, and then reduce its performance significantly by not using a balanced connection.

If you do NOT have a balanced connection to use, and are not planning on upgrading to a preamp with balanced inputs, then you might be just as well off buying the Marantz SA8001 for $900. It will probably perform as well as the $3000 units when used with an unbalanced connection.

In my experience, when you start getting to this kind of price/performance level, balanced connections are simply mandatory to avoid degradations in performance that are unacceptable.

My friend has both the CX7 and 5 (he collects and buys a lot of stuff!). Here are my thoughts:

-The 5 is a better buy than the 7

-We tried listening to the 5, 7 and the Sony ES 5400 and Mike who owns these said that he loved Ayre but that he cannot justify the price compared to the Sony. He has two Levinson monoblocks and Martin Logan and Revel speakers. I trust his ears I have a serious case of ringing in the ears so I might not be the best judge for all the little things that some might notice

-I guess if I had the choice I would spend the money on speakers or amp not cd players but then I believe that you can get damn good sound for not spending a lot of money

There is a school of thought that says everything must be on 24/7 although I am sure it applies to valves too but can't be followed for economic and safety reasons. So you have a set of rules that applies only to solid state amps but can't for valves for purely economic reasons.

OK, I have an all solid-state system which I just can't afford to keep running 24/7 simply because its just not safe to do so. Maid, Kids, Lightning etc.

The compromise is to switch on everything for a couple of hours before listening. I have had the CX7e for a couple of years now and the practice is to run track 1 of the Ayre CD and leave the unit on standby. I play track 7 once a week again a couple of hours prior to listening.

I have yet to hear anything better at this price range. Highly recommended.