Ayre Acoustics QX-5 Twenty – The Digital Hub

[Axiom05]

Firmware Q has been released which is supposed to fix the DOP problem on non-USB inputs.

[ufoerp]

4 hours ago, Axiom05 said:

Firmware Q has been released which is supposed to fix the DOP problem on non-USB inputs.

Thanks for this important update and will try today.

[ufoerp]

14 hours ago, Axiom05 said:

Firmware Q has been released which is supposed to fix the DOP problem on non-USB inputs.

One local user has reported that there is abnormal noise on left channel on USB port on firmware Q. Not sure if this is single case?

[ufoerp]

4 hours ago, ufoerp said:

One local user has reported that there is abnormal noise on left channel on USB port on firmware Q. Not sure if this is single case?

this abnormal noise will happen when play flac/wav music file using USB port. Not sure if this is individual case or not?

[Axiom05]

8 minutes ago, ufoerp said:

this abnormal noise will happen when play flac/wav music file using USB port. Not sure if this is individual case or not?

I haven't tried the update yet so can't comment. Noise on the USB input sounds like it would be pretty hard not to notice before release of firmware.

[Ryan Berry]

6 hours ago, Axiom05 said:

I haven't tried the update yet so can't comment. Noise on the USB input sounds like it would be pretty hard not to notice before release of firmware.

 

It appears that the version we uploaded for download had an odd compilation error that caused the noise described.  We reuploaded the firmware just now without changing anything, and now the downloaded firmware is behaving normally.  Really an odd problem that I don't have much explanation for beyond that, but it should be resolved.

[gtl]

What's the price of the Net2 upgrade? Considering that or going with the USB2 upgrade for 850usd. Currently using Aurender W20 with the USB1. Given the rave reviews of the NET2, I am slightly tempted to go with the Net2 and finally getting a roon subscription. 

[Axiom05]

4 hours ago, gtl said:

Given the rave reviews of the NET2, I am slightly tempted to go with the Net2 and finally getting a roon subscription. 

You might be disappointed with the sound quality of Roon compared to your W20.

[ufoerp]

On 11/3/2022 at 11:58 PM, Axiom05 said:

You might be disappointed with the sound quality of Roon compared to your W20.

It is really an interesting comparison between Roon and Aurender system.

[HifiVoice]

7 hours ago, ufoerp said:

It is really an interesting comparison between Roon and Aurender system.

 

I did this a few months ago in multiple ways;

1. Music files played directly from Aurender N100H -> Ayre QB-9 Twenty -> Ayre EX-8
2. Same music files played via ROON, and streamed via Airplay to Aurender N100H -> Ayre QB-9 Twenty -> Ayre EX-8
3. Same music files played via ROON, and streamed directly to the Ethernet input of the Ayre EX-8

There is not ROON DSP processing involved. The core runs on an iMac, connected via ethernet to my in-house network. 

 

The first option (Aurender) sounds overall much better than the other options. ROON sounds flatter; there is a lack of openness and air/space, and the background is not as dark. ROON gives has more attack, and has a bit “harder sound character”; treble is a bit more fierce.  Playing a same copy of the file from the Aurender HD directly is more silky, has more micro dynamics, timbre, and intonation. It sound less blunt. E.g., some examples (I listed to much more): 

• False air in a sax tube has more character, flanging, ssfffrrrr sounds (Andy Sheppard - And a day from the album: Romaria)) 
• A hobo has more “tube” and reed with the Aurender, and therefore has more space for intonation and decay.  (Couperin - Le Concert royaux, No. 1 - II. Allemande, Legèrement, performance by Jordi Savall, label: Aliavox)

ROON via the Aurender sounds better than ROON via the EX-8; I suspect because the Ayre QB-9 Twenty as a DA convertor sounds better than the convertor in the EX-8 (it is essentially the same, with the exception of the USB input, that is newer in the QB-9 like the one on the QX-5; I also connected the Aurender directly to the eX-8 to check that).

 

I have good hope that a USB2 and NET2 updates for the EX-8 will bring it to the same level; patiently waiting for that. I assume the QX-5 is on the same or better level than the QB-9 Twenty, I have no experience with the QX-5. 

 

Full report (with all quick Dutch-English translation typos included) attached.

EX-8 review.pdf

[scottsol]

I have no particular opinion about the sound quality of Roon, but when comparing an Aurender vs Roon running on a non optimized iMac you are putting the Roon at a distinct disadvantage.

[HifiVoice]

2 hours ago, scottsol said:

I have no particular opinion about the sound quality of Roon, but when comparing an Aurender vs Roon running on a non optimized iMac you are putting the Roon at a distinct disadvantage.

 

Just for learning, how can you optimise an iMac for Roon? 

[scottsol]

1 hour ago, HifiVoice said:

 

Just for learning, how can you optimise an iMac for Roon? 

It’s more like optimizing the Mac for single purpose use. This means turning off every nonessential process, both by closing apps and going into the OS. It means running an operation that makes sure Roon or whatever program is important is always given priority (Roon may already include a routine for this.) There may need to be things like increasing ram and various other mods. There are lots of threads and articles on this site about that very thing. 
 

There are also suppliers who custom build computers for audio use that have been designed from the ground up to leave out all the things that would be needed in a general purpose computer as well as taking steps to isolate the circuitry from both electrical and mechanical noise. Roon makes such devices but li have not compared them with other specialty computers. I’m sure somebody here has.

[HifiVoice]

38 minutes ago, scottsol said:

It’s more like optimizing the Mac for single purpose use. This means turning off every nonessential process, both by closing apps and going into the OS. It means running an operation that makes sure Roon or whatever program is important is always given priority (Roon may already include a routine for this.) There may need to be things like increasing ram and various other mods. There are lots of threads and articles on this site about that very thing. 

 

It's an iMac with 8x i9 cores, where the max load of ROON is 8%, and the RAAT process also hits a max of 10% so now and then.

 

38 minutes ago, scottsol said:

There are also suppliers who custom build computers for audio use that have been designed from the ground up to leave out all the things that would be needed in a general purpose computer as well as taking steps to isolate the circuitry from both electrical and mechanical noise. Roon makes such devices but li have not compared them with other specialty computers. I’m sure somebody here has.

 

I know about these effect, a friend of mine is making his own audio streamer (on a PC), trying to compete with JPlay. When he schedules threads differently, kills all sort of background processes, or changes packet lengths to the USB interface, all has some audible effects. But here the case is that the PC USB interface is directly connected to the DAC, and there it may make sense (e.g. ground bounce issues due to different loads on the power supply).  

 

As the iMac is streaming its info through an ethernet wire to my router, and the router streams it to the Aurender or the amplifier, I don't expect that threads on the iMac are influencing the audio stream in a way that it causes potential jitter effect at the destination. This stream is bit-true, and if it is about jitter, it will be caused somewhere else.

 

The only thing I can imagine is that the Airplay protocol to the Aurender (when using ROON via the Aurender), may be subject to sample rate conversion between separate processes on the iMac, as e.g. the process steering the ethernet interface may run at a different speed than the audio generating process of ROON, and the way the audio drivers in OS-X work imply sample-rate conversion may occur (I talked to the guys of Rogue Amoebe about it). I did some experiment grabbing audio with Audio Hijack with different source streams, and I did see quite some shifts in timing with ROON compared to the original audio file. I'm still defining some experiments to deep-dive in here, as I cannot exclude side effects with what I have done so far. Maybe a nice experiment for Xmas times. 

 

Nevertheless, having a computer (or NAS) as a streaming device is for me a common use case, and if I have to create dedicated cores/streamers to get ROON behaviour on-par with an Aurender, then why not use an Aurender? :-) If in the common use-case it fails, it is not practical. 

 

My hope is to get it as good or close to the direct streaming of ROON to the EX-8,  to be able to exclude the QB-9 and Aurender, and only have 1 device between my source files and loudspeakers. I had some PM conversations with Ayre about it, and I have all the hope it will get close or even better. 

[scottsol]

My experience has been that irrelevant factors make as big a difference as important ones. In any case, the Aurender represents a hardware and software solution while The Roon is just software.

[warrior_on_mars]

Hi,

 

Received today my USB2 upgrade for QX-5 Twenty from good folks at Hifisound UK. I can play Roon Windows 11 -> local HQPlayer -> DoP DSD256x48 -> Ethernet -> NAA service on MacOS -> USB -> DAC with no issues.

 

Anyone could suggest how the native DSD512 could be used instead of DoP?

 

Thanks!

[warrior_on_mars]

Replying myself: Jussi replied elsewhere that MacOS devices cannot send Native DSD.

[ufoerp]

On 10/20/2022 at 5:50 AM, Ryan Berry said:

 

It appears that the version we uploaded for download had an odd compilation error that caused the noise described.  We reuploaded the firmware just now without changing anything, and now the downloaded firmware is behaving normally.  Really an odd problem that I don't have much explanation for beyond that, but it should be resolved.

Ryan, any new plan of Ayre product upgrade or new model?

[HifiVoice]

4 hours ago, ufoerp said:

Ryan, any new plan of Ayre product upgrade or new model?

 

I learned a week ago that Ryan is unfortunately not with Ayre anymore: 

 

 

[ufoerp]

@HifiVoice Thanks for sharing. This is very large change I am afraid. The Company has gone through so many and frequent top seniors change in the past 3 years.

I still remember that they have taken more than 1 year to make the AES/spdif port to back to normal - to play DSD64 file...

[Mercman]

Brent is working at Auralic. I guess Ryan will be joining him.

[ufoerp]

15 minutes ago, Mercman said:

Brent is working at Auralic. I guess Ryan will be joining him.

Thanks for sharing. It will be interesting to see the next stop for Ryan.

And it is more interesting to see what is for the next Ayre.

[Axiom05]

1 hour ago, Mercman said:

I guess Ryan will be joining him.

What makes you say that?

[ufoerp]

11 hours ago, Mercman said:

Brent is working at Auralic. I guess Ryan will be joining him.

I think the possibility will be relatively low for Ryan to Join Auralic. As I understand, Auralic R&D and product design is not in US? I believe Ryan will lead R&D and product design as big picture of one brand.

[nrenter]

I think there are good things ahead for Ayre. Stay tuned!