Ayre Acoustics QX-5 Twenty – The Digital Hub

[barrows]

I suspect the QX-5 is far from reality at this point, as the ESS 9038 is not even available to developers yet... That said, I trust that Ayre will have something special here when it is available.

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My point exactly, after this:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f6-dac-digital-analog-conversion/another-example-why-i-hate-direct-stream-digital-and-why-customers-who-bought-sonys-boloney-are-so-annoying-17112/index5.html

 

Ayre DACs use ESS DAC chips, which are totally capable of DSD playback without any special considerations, so of course they allow for DSD playback, as the market demands it.

This does not have anything to do with Charlie Hansen's disdain for DSD in general.

 

There are a lot of things to dislike about the path digital audio has taken in the marketplace. I consider the fact that we have to have two different base frequencies, requiring two different clock frequencies abhorrent, for example. And the wars between DSD/DVDA, and Sony's subsequent mind blowingly poor marketing of SACD and desire for strong copy protection are just some examples of such. The history of music distribution and recording formats is not one which serves audiophiles/music lovers.

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Hi barrows,

 

My only point in bringing the DSD rant up, was to to respond to why would the above quote be surprising. They are in the business of making money.

 

I have met Charlie Hansen a few times, and have known some of the other folks over at Ayre, and I can assure you that their first concern is making excellent products, and that making money is their second concern. They are one of the good guys of the audio industry.

The ESS 9038 is a refinement of the 9018, using the same basic architecture for the modulator, so it is very reasonable to assume the sound quality will be very similar. Since Ayre already uses the other ESS chips, it seems reasonable to me for them to go ahead and spec ESS' new flagship chip in their DAC. I know, as an ESS 9018 user myself, I am confident that the 9038 will be at least as good sounding, if not better than previous ESS chips.

[barrows]

Or maybe was even brought in during the chip design for input.

 

I very much doubt it. Ayre does not use much of the capabilities of the ESS chips, as they prefer to run their own oversampling and filters in an FPGA, bypassing the complete front end section of the ESS DAC chip, and the also run the ESS chip synchronously, bypassing ESS' "jitter eliminator" feature. One of the new capabilities of the new 9038 is that it has more onboard filter options, but Ayre will not be using any of those. If Ayre was helping design a DAC chip for their use, they would likely eliminate 3/4 of the "features" which ESS build into its chips, and the chip would just include the second stage oversampling and Delta Sigma Modulator.

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Just talked to Ayre here at the Munich show. The company has had a "beta" version of the ESS chip for a little while.

 

Also, this new DAC will be RoonReady and is quite a step up from the QB-9. This looks to be a real winner, at least on paper and based on my lengthy conversation with them today.

 

Thanks Chris! I suspect this DAC will be a winner for those in this price range.

[barrows]

How would you describe the improvement over the QB-9? (That's essentially what I've got in my Ayre DX-5). I've barely finished paying for the "twenty" upgrades to the MX-R's and KX-R, so I have no business thinking about spending more for a while, but...

 

The DX-5 has a very different output circuit and power supplies to the QB-9. It would be a mistake to think they sound the same.

[barrows]

I also believe that Ethernet is superior, and since I want also to use ROON, I am investigating purchasing a streaming DAC with Roon support (Ayre QX-5, Brinkmann Nyquist, ...) rather than a simple USB DAC.

 

But... I do not have ethernet cable coming to my listening room. Only Wifi reach my DAC ! so while WiFi may be OK for streaming Tidal and for iPAD connection, I would rather have an ethernet cable connection between my music storage and my Streaming DAC.

 

So I need to have the Music server (or Ethernet HD ? ) in the same room connected directly by an ethernet cable to my Streaming DAC ? Something like a MELCO directly connected to the QX-5 through a plain ethernet cable ?

 

This could be OK IF.... Melco could run as a ROON Server, But alas it is not the case :-(

 

So, what is the option for me to use the QX-5 as a ROON endpoint without having to use a NAS somewhere on my network ? Some sort of Melco that will be able to be also a ROON Server ?

 

Can you get creative and run the required Ethernet cabling on the exterior of your home, this is what I do. I would recommend against both WiFi and Ethernet over power line if sound quality is important to you. You will need some kind of computer on your network to run ROON, there is no reason why that computer cannot both run ROON and act as your file storage, as long as it has adequate hard drive storage onboard.

[barrows]

We spoke about this a few weeks ago. To me it's not even close. Spoke with the Pres of another named manufacturer yesterday about this topic. He said the same thing about their DAC. Said that you must have a very good preamp or you want get what you want out of any DAC. He said he didn't know what the future really holds in this regard

 

Such statements are audiophiles myths. There is no technical reason why inserting an extra (and unnecessary) component into the chain will improve performance. Additionally, there is no method of volume control which produces less distortion than a digital volume control when implemented correctly.

Manufacturers who sell preamps are not the best source to trust for actual facts on this matter. Certainly, such a manufacturer can build their DAC such that it sounds better into their preamp, but this does not mean that using a preamp is always better!

 

Ask yourself: how could a preamp make a system better versus no preamp at all? Every added component in the signal path adds distortion/noise, including, even the very best, preamps. By removing a preamp you remove the following components: at least 1 interconnect, including two contact based connections, at least a single active stage, often two, with transistors (or tubes), resistors, often capacitors, input switching (all switches add distortion/noise) and usually a resistor based volume control device. Every single one of these components adds distortion/noise.

 

If a manufacturer knows how to design a good gain (or in some cases buffer) stage for their preamp, they know how to put that Exact Same Circuit into the output of their DAC, and that circuit is what drives the interconnect-input stage of the amp.

 

Now I am not saying that every DAC will perform better when run direct to amp, as some DACs have inadequate output drive to drive the input stage of some amps at their best-but this does not mean that running a preamp is Always better! It is quite easy to build the output stage of the DAC such that it drives the input stage of the amp at its best: just use the same circuit used in the output of the preamp!

 

Yes, i have tested this with many DACs, and some are not up to the task, but many are as well, and making blanket statements that using a preamp is always better is misleading and technically incorrect as well.

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CT: How do you think a manufacturer can make their preamp sound better? Technically speaking? No matter what, a DAC is always both a digital and analogue component at once, whether it drives an amp directly or not, so you always have the "problem" of a mixed signal device handling both analogue and digital duties.

 

Indeed, you do want to have separate power supplies in DAC, often the more separate supplies the better, and the best DACs have separate supplies. Noise is a cumulative problem; a preamp can only add noise to the signal, it cannot reduce it.

 

It is very frustrating to hear audiophiles "believing" these ridiculous myths, which have no basis in the technical reality of the situation.

 

All the amplifier "knows" is what the signal feeding it is like; if one uses the same (analogue) circuit at the output of the DAC which used at the output of the preamp, the amp will see exactly the same signal, minus the additional no/distortion added by the preamp.

 

I will not discuss this any further, but I suggest that you educate yourself a bit on the technical details of audio circuitry before believing myths like this, and making misleading blanket statements.

 

I am not "skeptical", I know what I am talking about as an audiophile for 40 years, and working in the industry for many years as well.

[barrows]

Ayre will be the last to embrace MQA as they prefer to make their own digital filters and control the sound of their products themselves.

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Just watched Darko's interview and peak under the hood of the QX-5 with Charlie. Nice video. Ayre has really offered a lot in terms of quality with this DAC for the money. Things like custom Mercury (made in the USA) EI transformers are about ten times more expensive than the average toroid, for example.

[barrows]

I don't think Ayre uses any toroidal transformers, only EI.

 

Yep, as far as I know this is true. But my comment was also specifically to the Mercury brand, which is quite expensive (we have had some made for Sonore stuff). You can get lesser quality EI transformers for the same price as medium quality toroids.

[barrows]

Hate to say it, but this is all getting complicated beyond all belief for many of us. I have been ready to get a top Melco and use it as a NAS with my Mac Mini (rebuilt by Steve Nugent with a Paul Hynes LPS) running Roon and anything else I'm supposed to use. It's already optimized for SQ with everything turned off. I am getting the components to built a fiber optic network, so I know that will help lower the noise floor at least.

 

I don't like up sampling and I"ve heard it a lot. My old DAC had it and it just sounded like the sound was larger than it really was. I don't do DSD and never will, so what Ayre offers me is perfect for now.

 

Huh? you do realize that the Ayre upsamples to 352.8/384, then passes the digital stream to the ESS 9038 chip which does further up sampling onboard, right? If one upsamples in software to 352.8/384 rates, you are then comparing the proprietary up sampling engine using Ayre's custom digital filters, to whatever the software based upsampler is.

[barrows]

Yes totally misunderstood. I don't get into the tech as much as most do as I'm still must a music lover and audiophile. I misunderstood what I was told. Thanks for catching that as I love to learn and need to. My older DAC upsampled, but you had to press a button to control it and I never did it as it just didn't sound proper. That was a very inexpensive DAC though ($500).

 

Yes, CT. Poorly done over/upsampling is to be avoided, this is why Ayre (our current example, they are not the only ones) goes to the trouble of developing their own proprietary oversampling code, running on a separate FPGA chip (the FPGA gives them much more resources/power than what is available on the ESS 9038 chip itself) in their DACs.

[barrows]

Not meaning to be pedantic, but Ayre uses single-pass 16X oversampling, so everything goes up to 705.6 KHz/768 KHz.

 

Cheers.

 

Actually, that is not the entire story. I am aware that Ayre's oversampling engine runs a single pass to 705.6/768 (forgot in the previous posts) but then the data stream is handed off to the ESS 9038, which does another step of oversampling up to MHz rates before conversion to analog.

[barrows]

Hi Charlie,

 

It is nice to see you posting here again.  It is always interesting to get a little inside information on the technical aspects of Ayre's products and the attention to detail which goes into the design and development of them

And, Congratulations to all at Ayre for the excellent Stereophile Review of the QX-5. 

[barrows]

It is great that Ayre is offering these options!  I get it that the USB input is probably a daughter board to the ("standard") SPDIF/AES input board, but when I first saw the QX-5 I was wishing for a USB only version (like the QB-9).  Maybe there would not be enough demand to justify developing a single USB input PCB though...  I always suspect input switching of digital signals is a potential point of loss and prefer KISS, I loved the QB-9's elegant approach, but I also realized Ayre lost sales because of its single input.

[barrows]

Not Charles, but as the Ethernet input module on the QX-5 is on its own PCB, i would suspect that any Ethernet hardware upgrade could be installed by a dealer/distributor.

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15 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Full MQA support,

Are you willing to accept reduced performance with non-MQA files and higher price to support MQA?  That is probably what it will take.

I know Ayre is under a lot of customer demand to support MQA, it does worry me if this flawed format gains wide acceptance.

[barrows]

1 hour ago, Audio said:

Why and how could QX-5 degrade it's performance in order to support MQA

MQA is a flawed format, do some research on it.

 

Ayre goes to great effort to produce their own, proprietary digital filters, which add performance to their DACs.  MQA requires that one use a digital filter developed by the MQA folks.  Right now the Ayre DAC implements its own filters in an FPGA chip: it may be possible to add MQA filters without having to compromise the Ayre filters, it may not be.  This will depend on how much room is left in the FPGA for more filter algorithms.  If I were buying an Ayre DAC, I would be much more interested in using it as the designer intended, with the excellent and proprietary Ayre filters, and not paying an additional premium to add MQA.

 

MQA is lossy compression scheme, which basically delivers faux hi res audio with more artifacts than real hi res and good digital filters will provide.  As far as I can tell, to this point MQA is technically inferior to just using real hi res in the first place, I would call this a solution looking for a problem, we already can have real hi res without MQA.  What scares me most about MQA is that if it gains wide acceptance, it may replace real hi res files.  Please, before you just believe the hype, do a little research for yourself, and see what you think.  If you do listening tests, beware these can be tricky with MQA, if the MQA filter is on and you play non MQA files, you can have big problems.  The only fair comparison is MQA compared to the original real hi res with no compression.

 

 

[barrows]

3 hours ago, Audio said:

I have been to MQA listening sessions in RMAF and in Munich Hi-End show and in all instances, MQA sounds fabulous

Who put those on?  It is very, very easy to rig such tests.  Especially considering every test I have ever heard of being done is apples to oranges.

[barrows]

3 hours ago, Audio said:

Last night, thanks to your advice, I decided to do a little comparison between Hi -Res file and MQA.  I chose Linda Ronstadt "Blue Bayou" off the Simple Dreams album do the A-B testing.

So you compared using a Lumin?  What does that DAC use for its digital filters when not using MQA?  Consider...

 

To be a fair test this is what you need to do:

 

Get the original hi res file, has to be same mastering.  Now listen on a DAC with really good digital filters' very thing else the same, same source etc.

 

Then listen on the MQA DAC.

 

If you prefer MQA, then you like artifacts which are not part of the music, that is all there is to it.

 

MQA has no magic, and there is no magic ability to make lossy compression actually be better than real hi res.  MQA filters are better than the standard stuff in some DACs, but not better than good ones playing real hi res.

[barrows]

9 hours ago, firedog said:

basically very close to a master 192k high res recording in quality.

So there's the rub.  Why use the "very close" of MQA when we can just use the actual 192k file instead?  MQA requires (in most cases) a new hardware purchase, so we can listen to lossy versions of 192k files, why would we want to promote that?

And answer this question for yourself: why do the purveyors of MQA bot allow full use of MQA via a playback software update alone?  

[barrows]

35 minutes ago, firedog said:

Again, Berkeley claims that MQA is the best real world solution, as there is a muddle  of DA and AD converters with different filters used that results in time smearing in recordings. They claim that MQA sets real, consistent standards and deals with this time domain problem better than present day 24/192 does in reality, so they support it as the best alternative for high resolution reproduction in the real world.

Right, MQA sets a "standard" for lossy reproduction of real 192 source files, I do not want that, and no audiophile should.  different DACs have different digital filter approaches because those are the design beliefs of the engineers which make them.

For example, companies like Ayre and Chord spend a great deal of time getting their digital filters just right, to produce the sound quality that they want their products to have.  Instead, with MQA, one has to accept the "Bob Stuart as GOD" approach to digital filtering, instead of different companies having the choice to produce the sound they are looking for in the implementation of their filters.

Additionally, any audiophiles are using software programs like HQPlayer and Audirvana to create their own filters.  Seeing the responses of the MQA filters, i am certainly not convinced that they are the "last word" in digital filtering!  There is no "magic" in the MQA approach which makes it better than existing filter algorithms from other manufacturers, but they are the first implementation to ever have the gaul to suggest that their approach should be a new "standard", and that audiophiles should suddenly adapt this "standard" and pay a bunch more for it. 

[barrows]

OMG, I figured this was coming, but I never thought it would be so soon.  I only met Charlie once, at the Ayre offices, but right away I knew this was an interesting man, a character of wit and high intelligence.  He was one of those people you meet, and you can tell there is a lot going on in his mind, with the wheels always turning.  As a fellow cyclist, and Boulder resident, I looked forward to the time I would get to go out on a ride with him, but then very quickly he had his accident, which was caused in my understanding by a careless motorcycle rider-it happened on the the mountain road which leads to my own home, a very popular route for cyclists of all levels, from pros training for the Grand Tours, to everyday riders.

Please, everyone, think about Charlie next time you are in your vehicle and encounter a cyclist on the road, and just consider taking an extra measure of care, cyclists are so vulnerable out there.

Charlie's loss is huge for the audio manufacturing community, but even more for the all of his family and friends, a truly unique individual and smart and fascinating man.