commsysman
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THE AYRE C-5 XE UNIVERSAL PLAYER
CECE
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Why would the balanced out sound any better than the RCA? You have several hundred feet of wire going somewhere? And what i meant by teh rivers and reptiles, AQ seems to run their marketing and wire science based on the mode of the month. Reptiles, rivers, birds, should be cannine models out soon, then maby water fowl. Other bird types. Horses, and assorted farm animals. But you can't have teh batteries hooked up to a COW wire, cows are very sensitive to leakage voltages. That's why NEC requires grounded bonded items in dairy barns, the leakage current has been found to make milk production suffer, for some reason cows are very sensitive to the leakage current. Maybe they need cow test to see which wires are best at no leakage for audio wires, mooooooooo. Does a reptile wire sound better than a bird wires? i think they even had a mineral line of wires, they all eventually wind up at HCM Aduio at discounts, cus' they be discontinued, replaced by another generation , species,and genre'. I'm sure it's all real electrical engineering going on there. They haven't done PLANET mofifs yet...I'm sure it's coming. Other guys have Vikings,and mystical terms to baffle and delight. And they all just have their own wizzardy inside.

Jim Tavegia
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The fact that both JA and WP own it would be enough for me if it was within my budget. I can't imagine anyone ever being disappointed by that player in any format.

I am sure it is hard at this price point not to worry about spending that much money and being disapponted, but I think you would be very pleased...at least until the come out with the Ayre C5-XE Super Deluxe and I might bet that Mr. Hansen might offer an upgrade for a fair price.

The reality is that it would take mucho more dollars to make it better in most ways that would truly matter. I am envious of those who own one.

mrlowry
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Ayre has great customer service and as Jim alluded to when there is an update to a current product it's always offered to current owners at an unbelievably affordable price. Sonically I

commsysman
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When I first bought the Sony CDP777, the first thing I found out was that it was very sensitive to the cables used.
You would not believe how bad it sounded with the cables Sony supplied, which appeared to be of least above average quality. I thought the thing was a defective unit at first, it sounded so bad. I was ready to return it, since it sounded so inferior to the the demo I heard. Experimenting with different interconnects quickly demonstrated that that was the problem.

Differences in sound quality with different cables was VERY pronounced with this unit; this was not my opinion only, but that of several listeners!

The Audioquest Diamondback cables deliver the best sound of any I have tried with this unit, regardless of their silly nomenclature. This may be due to the fact that they float the shield; it is only terminated at one end, and therefore no RF or AC currents can be present on the shield. I have experimented with making cables over the years, and found that this 3-conductor configuration is generally better.

Also, I have interconnects about 10 feet long from my preamp to my power amplifier. There is NO unbalanced interconnect I have ever tried that even approaches the sound quality I get with ANY balanced interconnect. This is my experience, based on very careful listening, whether it agrees with your preconceptions or not.

When you say "why would the balanced sound any better than the RCA", you display a lack of experience that I find remarkable in anyone who calls themself an audiophile. It really is quite astounding. You should read some of the comments John Atkinson has made in the forums regarding the inherent advantages of balanced and the difficulties inherent in unbalanced connections of ANY length. He certainly has more experience than either of us, and he makes his opinion plain that balanced interconnects are unquestionably superior! Again, it is surprising that you are not familiar with his comments (or do you simply choose to ignore anything that disagrees with your preconceptions??).

In general, this has been my experience; ANY balanced interconnect generally delivers excellent results, while unbalanced interconnects MAY give good results but more often do not.

By the way, YOU may find your endless attempts at sarcasm and silliness entertaining, but I very much doubt whether anyone else does. They certainly do nothing to clarify any issue. but if they amuse YOU, who am I to deprive you of your small self-amusement; rant on! But if you want to comment in these forums in the future, please try to slip in SOME small measure of serious comment on the subject at hand among your attempts at humor.

CECE
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I used both types of connections, in the home enviorement, no difference. Pro situations usueally have a lot more lengths and connections involved. You still didn't asnwer teh question, WHy would balanced SOUND better over RCA? I ain't heard any difference in teh SOUND on my stuff. Maybe it's other issues...you know standard responses, not resolving, I don't know how to listen, my hat is on backwards. Wrong type in wire used for teh connections. Most important change was more POWER, more AMPS, bigger speakers. all pretty simple things. If you are trying to hear teh difference between a yellow butterfly's wings and a Blue butterflys's wing, keep telling yourself you can do that. Wire sellers and magic isolators with wooden magic properties love it. The wire of the month club, hardly worth the effort. Since a 75Ohm piece of wire is gonna sound like teh otehr 75Ohm piece of wire. 12 ga sounds like 12ga. You probably think there is great differences in 93 octane from Exxon versus Shell too? I have 10 CD players, all types new old, different brands,single disc, changers, even a solid state Marantz to compact flash, you couldn't pick one out ovaer the other if your life depended on it. Used to always hear how the TRANSPORT mattered in the sound, people where actually hearing the different transports, you couldn't pick one out over the other one running through what ever DAC if you tried. the stuff sounds so much the same, I only know cus' I know which one is playing When i forget which one is on, I gotta look to see which one is playing, without the display, you couldn't tell. to be able to hear a difference in a piece of wire, is beyond absurd, but marketeers love to keep making up nice diagrams, of how they broke teh code, and have the latest fix, for a problem that don't exist. Snake skin, mountain skin, what is it next month?

commsysman
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DUP:

The clearly stated purpose of this forum WAS and IS to invite comments from OWNERS and USERS of the AYRE C5xe regarding its performance and features. Nothing you have said indicates that you are either, so you are an uninvited participant here. You are out of bounds. You have NO business making ANY comment here. You are a gate-crasher.

Furthermore, even IF you had any business being here (which you clearly do not), in all of your rambling discourse, there is NO comment about the AYRE; NOTHING!!! Do you just barge into ANY forum and say any irrelevant thing that pops into your head? That seems to be what you are doing. How about paying SOME attention to the topic, instead of ramblings about cows and butterflies?

If you want to rant and rave on your favorite subject, please go to the appropriate forum and start your own topic on your own subject. Please do not come to this forum uninvited and try to monopolize it and transform it into your own platform on your own subject; that is the height of rudeness and egotism. Please try to show some semblance of common sense and good manners.

commsysman
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Thank you very much for your RELEVANT information and comments; it is really nice that someone can stick to the subject here rather than mumbling incoherently about cows and butterflies and how every CD player in the world sounds the same anyway....

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Quote:

When you say "why would the balanced sound any better than the RCA", you display a lack of experience that I find remarkable in anyone who calls themself an audiophile. It really is quite astounding. You should read some of the comments John Atkinson has made in the forums regarding the inherent advantages of balanced and the difficulties inherent in unbalanced connections of ANY length. He certainly has more experience than either of us, and he makes his opinion plain that balanced interconnects are unquestionably superior!

It would be unfair to think that the Balanced vs Unbalanced debate is an open and shut case... the opnion of a Single very knowledgable person not withstanding.

Placette Audio does not believe that balanced connections provide ANY sonic benifit.

Infact even the Stereophile site still carries Martin Colloms', November, 1994 article :

Balance: Benefit or Bluff?

http://stereophile.com/features/335

CECE
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Aaaa, whatda' I know. I'm sure soem golden ears are now gonna tell me, how can I NOT hear a difference between balanced and unbalanced. In pro situations with lotsa long wires, it does a purpose. In CONsumer stuff it's a nice marketing tool, to make it look like there is something really special going on. I have both types of connections going on, there ain't a wisp of difference in teh SOUND. cus' I have poor resoution system, and bad wires, I know. If balanced is teh best sounding, why do magic wire makers, sell unbalanced magic then? Vacuum, air, square, flat, all kinds of unbalanced magic stuff. Can a Furutech, demaga a balanced connector as well as unbalanced. If the wires are used on a different type circuit, shouldn't teh demagger do something different. Since balanced says it's eliminating all kinds of differentail problems, there would be no need to demag, so if that's true, then all magic wire makers should be only making balanced type, and all hi fi makers need go to blanced, if that is really a benefit in teh SOUND. Seems like it can get really into quite a bunch of conflicting claims and issues. Magic wires, magic demags, can all be fixed with a BALANCED setup? It will change the world of wires forever. Won't it? I would also bet anyone to tell me which one is using balanced versus unbalnced in a listening test.

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ampnut

There are knowlegeable companies on both sides of the issue. When talking to Ayre they will tell you that the preferred way to run their equipment IS balanced. My opinion is that a great way to make affordable gear is to NOT make it balanced thus cutting the number of parts roughly in half allowing a lower price or better parts. When it comes to best in class products in my opinion things should be balanced. I have never heard any technical reason why a truely balanced circuit would perform worse.

commsysman
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As I said in the original posting and to DUP above, this forum is a request for input from owners and users of the AYRE C5xe. This was clearly stated if you would kindly READ the original posting.

If you are NOT an owner or user of the AYRE who has comments to make YOU ARE IN THE WRONG BLOODY FORUM AND YOUR COMMENTS ARE OFF OF THE SUBJECT!!!! RUDE RUDE RUDE!!!

You and DUP need to get out of here and take your comments where they belong! His comments do NOT belong here and therefore you have no business responding to him here! Please go to the forum on cables to make your comments on cables, NOT HERE, DAMMIT!!!!

DUP is trying rudely to take over this forum and change the subject and your response to him plays his malicious game; please do NOT respond to him here!

Show some manners and basic decency, please!

commsysman
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You are getting sucked in by DUP too!

Kindly discuss cable sujects in the cable forum!

See above response to ampnut; this applies to you too!

commsysman
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PLEASE! PLEASE! ...EVERYONE!!

PLEASE RESPOND ONLY TO THE ORIGINAL POST IN THIS FORUM;

THIS FORUM IS ABOUT THE AYRE C5XE AND NOTHING ELSE!!!

LET'S PLEASE STAY ON THAT SUBJECT ONLY BY RESPONDING ONLY TO THE ORIGINAL POST.

THANK YOU

Jeff Wong
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I don't own the Ayre C-5xe, but, I've heard it at WP's place. It has a lovely, relaxed sound, with convincing spatial presentation, truth of timbre, and is a player that I'd be happy to live with. As Jim pointed out, I can't think of a better endorsement than WP & JA each plunking down hard earned cash and buying one.

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Cows and butterflys, who said anything about cows and butterflys? Now who is rambling? Sounds like a new line of designers cables. AQ should be coming out with the farm motif shartly. Sheep skin, leather insulations, maybe even strraw. Then you know it could easily be classified as BS. Literally

commsysman
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DUP, if you have a short-term memory loss problem along with your obvious personality disorders, you can at least scroll up this page to where YOU (YES, it WAS YOU!!!)discuss cows and electrical currents in dairy barns, and then a later post where you talk about different-colored butterfly wings; we all can SEE your posts quite clearly, even if you can't remember back a few days to some of your more bizarre ramblings. Pretty hard for you to deny it when it's right here on this page with your name attached!

And, once again (sigh...), I will remind you that your presence in this forum is uninvited, inappropriate, and very very rude for the reasons already stated above. Please do NOT post again in this forum.

commsysman
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Thanks Jeff:

I am convinced; I went ahead and ordered mine from Optimal Enchantment in Santa Monica (getting a good trade-in is helping with the $); I should have it in another week or so. JA was kind enough to e-mail me with his comments on his experience, which was helpful.

If you heard it at WP's place I guess you guys are all in the NYC area now??

Thanks again for your input.

mrlowry
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commsysman

Congratulations! I'm sure that the player will give you years of first class sound.

CECE
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As a highly edumacated electronics dude, can you please explain to a novice know nothing like me. How will the balanced output improve the sound of the SACD output over unbalanced? You are running hundreds of feet of connections? In an adverse high electrical noise enviorment? you are one with high papers, experiences in the field, please explain the SOUND differences between balanced and unbalanced. Thanks Profesor. And are they TRUE balanced outputs or done with op amps etc to give the marketing guys something to make pictures of? Surely you investigaed this spec, as what type they are using right? Checkout the RANE Balance Buddy units. you an make anything balanced to unbalanced and vice versa..surely you knew this www.rane.com

CECE
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Don't need pricey players if all you want is BALANCED, but does it really SOUND better? hmmm http://www.rane.com/bb44x.html

commsysman
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Part of your answer, regarding the specifics of the circuit components, is in the desciption of the circuits given of the AYRE in the review in Stereophile in 2005. You can read it on this website; your question makes it clear that you have NOT read it, which is rather surprising. Do your homework and check out the obvious source first before you ask that kind of tedious and unnecessary question.

As for the actual sound, I HEAR superior sound quality every time I do any meaningful comparison between balanced and unbalanced connections; balanced is always superior to my ears, regardless of cable length, and furthermore sound quality among unbalanced cables is quite variable according to MY EARS, while this is not true for balanced; balanced is consistent and superior in sound quality to unbalanced in almost every case. THAT IS WHAT MY EARS TELL ME!

In MY experience, one can either opt for balanced, where extra cost is put into circuitry but one is assured of superior sound in virtually every case, or one can go with unbalanced and experiment with cables until one finds the interconnect that results in a sound almost as good as balanced. From my perspective, the expense and hassle of experimenting with unbalanced cables to finally arrive at a sound that is more or less acceptable, is a waste of my time and money. I would rather go with balanced and be assured of superior sound without hassle. I would rather put my money into superior equipment and dispense with the possible cost of expensive cables to tweak the sound. That is MY preference based on MY experience.

If you do not hear the differences that I hear, or do not think that I hear them...please don't bother to tell me, beacause I really don't care. You have never listened to MY system, so you can hardly tell me what differences one can or cannot hear from it. I know what I hear, and I have been listening to audio systems critically for 40 years; by now I think I have reached the point where I KNOW when I hear a difference that is significant to ME, and that is what I will go with, regardless of a thousand nay-sayers.

I certainly can believe that the equipment you use in your system is so inferior in resolution that you do not hear the kinds of differences that most audiophiles DO hear. That would explain a lot. I have heard you push Van Alstine gear on occasion, and if you think that that junk is high-resolution audiophile gear, then all is revealed! You quite possibly have no idea what anyone is talking about, and have never heard true audiophile-quality equipment. That would certainly explain why you think everthing sounds the same; in your system it does!

As for the THEORY of why this should be so, it is clear to any engineer that a cable which depends on the shield to carry both signal current and to act simultaneously as a shield is not capable of doing both jobs satisfactorily. I wrote a long desciption of the theoretical issues previously in response to you a week or so ago, and you either have already forgotten it or just want to see me waste my time writing it all over again. I have no attention of repeating myself. Please refer to my earlier response if you really are interested in the theoretical issues (you might also look for the posts JA has made several times where he has clearly descibed the technical reasons for the clear superiority of balanced interconnects). Your previous statements lead me to believe that you are really not interested in trying to understanding the technical issues because they do not support the preconceptions you intend to stay with.

But let's make one thing absolutely clear; I am not trying to convince you of anything. You have made it quite clear that your opinions are are fixed and are not going to change, and I find your opinions so bizarre and divorced from the reality that I experience that they are are of no interest to me.

I listen to MY system, and when I hear something that persuades ME that I can make an improvement in its sound quality, I just have to go with that. No one is going to change that. You are certainly free to go with what floats your boat, but don't bother to tell me about it any more, because it is absolutely irrelevant to me.

myself
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hey bub,
i think it is very destructive for someone to take the discussion off-thread. and i myself truely believed that you should make a complain and report this to the moderator. there is a button in each post that one can press to report the "off thread post" for any abusing of this forum. the moderator can delect the inappropiate posts and have the poster banned.

i myself am very interested in buying the AYRE c-5xe player in the near future. does anyone know if ayre produces a "cd transport"?

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