The Superiority of Ayre Power

The three phase power supply is pure Ayre. There are three amplifiers, one for each phase. "Essentially, they are mini-MXRs," said Silberman. They are 120 degrees out of phase with one another, and we need to tune each one with a stethoscope to achieve absolute pitch stability. The result?

"Put your finger on the motor housing," Silberman demanded. "Can you feel any vibration or motion?"

No, we couldn't.

Oh yeah—it also sounded good.

COMMENTS
simon's picture

hi, sorry I don't quite get what this product is. is it a power supply that can be purchased separately for ayre products that one can plug their amps into? how many outputs does it have?

Jon Iverson's picture

The power supply goes with the turntable.

Charles Hansen's picture

In general, belt drive turntables use either a DC motor or a synchronous motor. Most synchronous motors are 2-phase designs. The first phase can either be supplied by the AC mains or a dedicated oscillator. The second phase is generally created by running the first phase through a capacitor to get a 90 degree phase shift.The dps turntable (and the SME, and possibly a few others) use a 3-phase synchronous motor. The advantage of a 3-phase over 2-phase is that (theoretically, at least) all of the torque variations (ie, "cogging") and vibrations cancel to zero. The disadvantage is that it's not easy to build a 3-phase power supply. But we've come up with a nice pure-analog design that we like. (The one in the photo is just a prototype, which is why it looks a little "sloppy" compared to our normal products.)Hope this helps,Charles HansenAyre Acoustics, Inc

Matt's picture

I had the same question as Simon, but here's another: what of the KX-R? Is it showing at CES?

Wes Phillips's picture

The KX-R is here in Vegas and is even cooler than I anticipated—but my beat is source components. Bob Deutsch will be blogging about the KX-R, not to mention all other amps and pres.

Richard's picture

Mr. Hansen,What is the difference between the 3 phase power supply of the DPS-3 and the 3 phase power supply manufactured by Ayre?

Charles Hansen's picture

I really don't know, because I haven't ever seen the 3-phase power supply that dps provides. The original impetus for Ayre to design a power supply was simply the cost. The dps 3-phase power supply basically doubles the price of the turntable compared to the standard 2-phase power supply. I figured that we could make a good 3-phase power supply for a lower cost than the dps 3-phase supply. I started researching it, and it turns out to be fairly tricky to make a nice 3-phase analog oscillator. (It's trivial with digital technology, but then you introduce a whole host of other problems.) When we were satisfied with the oscillator design we combined it with our zero-feedback power amplifiers to drive the motor. It improves the sound over the 2-phase power supply quite dramatically. My understanding is that Willi Bauer (the dps designer) will evaluate our supply. If he prefers it to his current 3-phase supply, he will include it with his product outside of North America. As usual, everything is subjec

Rene Stock's picture

"The Superiority of Ayre Power"-"The three phase power supply is pure Ayre."-"But the power supply, while having some innovative ideas, was not up to the standard of the DPS itself

Neil's picture

As published, this article makes little sense, having no introduction or context. Could you please re-work it so readers can better understand the purpose of this device. For example, what is the turntable mentioned so referred to, etc.?

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