AudioAficionado.org - Ayre 8 series

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From an Ayre newsletter:

*The 8 series

I know that the next question on everyone's mind is; "What is up with the 8 series!"

We are working hard to finalize the EX-8 (Digital integrated amp) and plan to begin shipping it the first week of February. Like the QX-5 it will have optional modules which can be added to expand the types of digital inputs available.

The QX-8 will be next, shipping in May, followed by the KX-8 and VX-8 which we will have as prototypes at the Munich show in May.

By the time we are finished with the 8 series in the fall, there will be 6 - 7 products in the line.
*

That’s good to hear that Ayre is moving forward with their 8 series line, hopefully that bodes well for the future. After what happened with Thiel, I was concerned that Ayre could possibly follow suit with the untimely passing of Charley Hansen but hopefully that will not be the case. I love Ayre products and hope the company has a bright future ahead.

- Buck

I couldn't agree more, Buck!

In fact, the rest of the newsletter was in that same vein:

*Ayre Moving Forward

Hello Everyone,

As you can probably imagine the last couple of months at Ayre have been emotional and somewhat disorganized. We all feel the loss of Charley and we will miss him greatly.

Fortunately, two years ago we began the process of re-organizing Ayre—at Charley's insistence—to be able to exist without him. It was a long process and there were a lot of difficult conversations. We thankfully had the help of our friend and consultant, Ian*Kendrick, to assist us with this process.

All of this work has resulted in a very resilient company which will be able to carry on Charley's work for decades to come. We have both an advisory board and executive board in place to steer the company and two years worth of product designs that we are excited to bring to market.

While we can never replace Charley, we will be bringing in additional people and resources to our R&D department. These resources will help support Ariel Brown (VP and CTO), who worked side-by-side with Charley for the last 21 years, and Brendan Boyle (Software Engineer). This way we can continue to deliver the innovative products you expect from us.

Thank you for your continued support and help in keeping Charley's spirit alive!

The Ayre Team*

I do think it's good for them to move on and a very wise decision of Charles to push this the way he did.

I wish them all the succes they need!

Marc

Demo of the 8 series integrated @ Audio Consultants, Evanston this weekend!

Does anyone know the MSRP and specs for the VX-8?

Still working on pricing that one. We usually have to get a bit closer to the done version before giving hard numbers to it, and we don't like to release numbers until we're pretty confident we can stick to them.

Is there going to be an AX-8 integrated or is the ES-8 sans dac module basically the integrated for this line.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrubTheHedgehog (Post 931616)

Is there going to be an AX-8 integrated or is the ES-8 sans dac module basically the integrated for this line.

The EX-8 has a no-digital option that is the analog only integrated for the line. Same 100W power, just no digital inputs or DAC involved. Obviously a fair bit less expensive without all that as well.