Article: Review | Ayre Acoustics QB-9 Twenty

[CG]

Well, you sold me!

 

You must have a time machine or something...

 

Did you use the balanced outputs or unbalanced?  Or, do my reading skills suck?

[CG]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

People still use unbalanced? :~)

 

I used the balanced outputs and haven't had RCA cables out of my closet in years :~)

 

There's actually a number of potential upsides to unbalanced operation.  You just need to find other ways to mitigate the real problems balanced operation tends to help with.

 

But, balanced works pretty well, too...

 

BTW, I'm VERY disappointed that the mounting screw for the power supply wasn't changed.  I feel taken advantage of.

[CG]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I’m a big fan of a usually higher output voltage with balanced connections in addition to the noise rejection. Not sure unbalanced can counter that, but I agree both can be great. 

 

Balanced circuitry doesn't have any particular signal level advantage over unbalanced.  You can make either one low or high.  The audio biz has sorta/kinda standardized around 2 or so Vrms for unbalanced, with double that for balanced.  But, there's no reason it has to be that way.  In fact, there's no reason power amplifiers need *any* voltage gain at all!  The power amp could just as easily be a unity gain current amplifier with all the voltage gain performed in the "preamp".  You'd gain roughly 26 dB in interconnect noise immunity because of the higher levels.

 

As for noise rejection, that's a long subject to discuss on an audio forum.  You can make an argument that just twisting the words together in an interconnect (or using quad twist) is just as good as balanced circuitry at audio frequencies.  But, with commercial audio gear, we are where we are.

 

Much of the noise reduction advantage of balanced audio amplification has to do with how the power supply noise and crap is rejected by the balanced amplifier circuitry.  Again, not even for the Objectivist corner here...

[CG]

5 minutes ago, Ryan Berry said:

If it helps, I can go in and replace every lock washer with a brand new, shiny, also non-magnetic lock washer of your choosing.  Just send in your material of choice with the unit and I'll oversee it personally.

 

Nah.  Too late.  My spirit has already been crushed irredeemably.

 

I'll just live with what you sent.

 

Thanks for the offer, though.

[CG]

17 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I certainly here you but in the real world we only can only make selections from the products available. I’ll stand by my preference for balanced and higher voltage because nothing else exists :~)

 

Real world?  That depends, doesn't it?

 

For me, when it doesn't exist, I build it myself.  That sure seems real enough to me.  

 

Obviously, that reality is different for everybody.  Some people have seemingly open ended budgets to buy gear.  (Note that I said open ended, not unlimited, although that might be true as well.)  Some people can't build their own or aren't interested.  (I decided a lonnggg time ago not to even think about building loudspeakers.)  Some people have limited living space that they share so headphone listening is their chosen solution.  And, so on.

[CG]

17 hours ago, CG said:

You can make an argument that just twisting the words together in an interconnect (or using quad twist) is just as good as balanced circuitry at audio frequencies.

 

Just noticed this - words should actually be wires.  Duh!  My fault for not proofreading adequately - I won't blame the spell chick. 🐥

 

I should also add that some balanced circuit topologies have the potential to provide better distortion performance in some ways because of the symmetrical source impedance for both inputs.  This depends on the circuit design.  Another subject too long for here, but worth investigating if you're fascinated with that sort of thing.  (Something else to think about - what happens to an amplifier circuit when the input impedance isn't defined?  As in, when a variable resistor - aka volume control - is used?)

 

Back to Broooooooce.

[CG]

4 minutes ago, Doak said:

Did I miss something?

 

Yes.

 

https://www.ayre.com/products/archive/qb-9/

 

It's a legacy product, no longer made.  This "Twenty" update is, well, an update for people who already own the product.

 

You can either say that this was a complete waste of company resources and the review was useless, or you can say hooray to Ayre for updating a product that was maybe their largest seller and that the review is to compare the previous version to the latest for all those existing owners. That's up to the reader.  It's also the fairest comparison I've seen yet to describe how the technology has progressed over the past few years.  (I'd also note that, to Chris anyway, the Twenty is competitive with other much more expensive DACs.  Not better, but competitive.  He'd have to be the one to expand on that.)

 

Personally, I paid the money.  The QB-9 DSD worked really well for us and it had just the right feature set for our application.  It was and is a basic product for one job only - convert digital audio files sent through a USB interface to analog signals.  No volume controls, no networking options, no headphone amp, no graphic display, and so on.  The new one supports more digital audio formats and in my opinion sounds better.  Kinda like dipping our old DAC in an audio fountain of youth.

 

In some ways, this is bad for Ayre.  Now, I'm not saving my pennies (more like twenty dollar bills) to purchase a QX-8 or QX-5.  On the other hand, their approach to this makes me an even more loyal customer who is more likely to buy other Ayre gear in the future.  Presumably, they priced the update in a sane business way, so they're doing well on this, too.  Good for them.