Upgraded from Ayre K5xemp to Ayre KX-5 Twenty short review
 

I originally started with the Ayre K5xe and had the factory upgrade this unit to the mp status which made a significant improvement in the sound. I have lived with this preamplifier for over 10 years which has given me much satisfaction.

I just recently borrowed from my dealer the KX-5 Twenty to see what type of a difference this made in my system.

The difference was staggering. I always knew that a preamp can make a big difference in your system sound quality wise, but I was unprepared for the difference the new KX-5 Twenty made to my system.

Every single aspect of the sound improved from the lowest bass to the highest treble notes. Everything sounded much more alive and real, where I could hear more texture in the bass notes, vocals sounding more lifelike and treble with cymbals sounding clear and distinct.

I also noticed this could be enjoyed at lower sound levels as well versus I always felt the need to crank up the volume to be totally satisfied.

After I returned the unit and inserted my old K5xemp back into the system I did not feel that motivated to listen to my system. I ordered the new KX-5 Twenty and the wait was long (over 3 months) to receive it and when I inserted this into my system I was not that happy with the sound which was a bit brash and on the bright side sounding nothing like the dealers loaner unit that had many hours on it. I felt maybe I made a mistake by trading in my old unit and my dealer assured me it needs 200 to 300 hours break in on each input and then make a judgment and guaranteed me it would sound as good as his demo unit.

After playing for several weeks I started to hear improvement in the sound but still felt it was not up to the level it should be and now after several months of playing it has smoothed out even more. I was skeptical about improvements in sound with running in a unit, but I am now a believer.

The bottom line is I am very pleased with this new preamp which has made one of the biggest impacts in the improvement of sound quality in my system than any other single component I have purchased. I truly believe as JA stated from Stereophile that indeed the preamp is the "heart of the system". Highly recommended.

Congrats! Glad you had the patience and allowed proper break in to see the improvements. What kind of speakers do you have?

Over Christmas 2016 I borrowed a KX-5 Twenty from my dealer, replaced the K-5xemp, and listened for 3 days. No going back, as Greg describes, so I have one on order. The K-5 sold immediately and while I wait I am using the Codex in preamp mode to drive the VX-5 Twenty. A year earlier I tried the same comparison of the KX-5 Twenty and K-5xemp and could not determine a difference. I think this is because the digital input is much better now ( microRendu/Codex with FMC and two LPS-1 ) and I did not spend much time comparing the analog input.

You guys are not helping me reign my spending in, not one bit!!!

B&W802Diamond

Congratulations on your new preamp. My dealer encouraged me to home audition a KX-5 when I home auditioned an ARC Ref 6, but I did not for some reason.

Two things come to mind here:

1. As JA has stated, "The preamp is the heart of the system" as I have learned. In fact, I've found that preamps make a much larger impact on the sound in my system than amplifiers that I have auditioned.

2. In general Ayre products do need a good deal of break-in as I learned back when I bought my Ayre C-5xeMP SACD player in 2009 which was the first Ayre product that I've owned. My Ayre dealer warned me that my new C-5 would not sound like the broken-in demo which I home auditioned at the time. In fact, he told me that he had people try to return theirs when their new one didn't sound as good as the demo unit and thought that something was wrong with it.

Right now I am breaking in a new Ayre QX-5 DAC. While it sounded good only after a few hours of play, it certainly didn't sound nearly as good as the broken in demo unit that I home auditioned. I've been running mine in 24/7 with a XLO break-in tract for 8 days now, and it is really blossoming now.

I'm most glad to hear that you are enjoying your new preamp.

You guys are right. The QX5 doesn't need to each input to be broken in. That's the good part. Yes the Ayre gear takes a longer time than most. Why? Probably the caps they are using. All my gear I've had that use higher end caps need at least 500 hours break in. My DAC was 'broken in at 500', but now that it's over 1000k, it sounds even better and to me by a fair amount. Same with my AX5/20. I had to break it in all over again after the upgraded boy was it worth it.

I always love posters who bad mouth Ayre gear about break in etc... It goes with the territory. I've heard a ton of high end and very expensive amps over the years. I've never heard a pre sound as good as a broken in KXR. That thing is sick. As Glenn says, it's just a special set of products they are making right now. Can't go wrong with any of them. Also, for those who ask, NO the preamps in the Codex or QX5 are not as good as using the KX5 or KXR. That's the reality.

Upgraded from Ayre K5xemp to Ayre KX-5 Twenty short review
 

Oh yeah break in is for real. I have never seen such a unanimous consensus about break in as with Ayre gear. Everyone seems to have the same experience and it really does require several hundred hours before you can evaluate. Also, never turn it off! Use the Ayre disc. Once I get the stuff to listenable levels it is fun to hear it improve gradually as you listen week after week. It changes in really surprising ways.

My QX/AX combo sounds a little better every time I listen but I am probably still under 500 hours. Lost count. Even just a week of running it all day while I was at the office made a huge difference and moved it more toward the demo units I have heard.

How critical is balanced to achieving the Ayre magic? I can either go directly from disc player to preamp to amp via balanced, or add an unbalanced Velodyne SMS-1 between the pre and amp to provide high-pass for a pair of KEF LS50s used with a pair of HGS-10. High-passing to the LS50 is said to improve its sound, but that would be at the cost of adding an unbalanced link. Is the trade-off likely to be worth it?

The KX-5 has two sets of balanced and one set of unbalanced outputs that can be used concurrently to drive amps or crossovers. The K-5exmp has one set of each. I run balanced to the VX-5 and unbalanced to a crossover for a bass amp.

Ayre advise a balanced connection, I have tried with CX7E-mp and DX-5, both times balanced was the better option. (my integrated amp is also fully balanced)
One of my friends has my old CX7E-mp player now, he tried a balanced connection to his Primare Pre-Amp, and here the balanced connection sounds worse than single ended.
So it depends on your own system, but if you have full balanced amp, I am sure the balanced connection is the preferred way to go.

Ayre gear is notorious for breaking in, and even after breaking in, if you take the power supply off (in my case 8 weeks, due to my work rotation) it takes 2 days to get back to the "magic"

dbphd... Welcome to AA! :wave:

Welcome. I can only talk about the gear since the AX7e (I owned that and upgraded to AX5 and then AX5/20. I also own the QX5/20) and since. I am very familiar with the ref series, but don't own it.

If you want the Ayre magic as you call it, then yes balanced is needed. It's just designed to be used that way. Honestly, I've felt for years that using the balanced inputs and outputs is most important as it lowers the noise floor allowing you to get the micro and macro dynamics of the music. That's where that magic happens.

I used non balanced phono stage for a year or so and once I upgraded to a balanced phono I noticed a huge difference in sound. Totally different amp to be honest. I ran the phono both ways and anyone could tell the difference. Even reviewers who often don't mention things like that will mention it.

JMHO

The problem with that is I want to shunt frequencies below 100 Hz away from the LS50s where distortion is said to rise. I bought a used Bryston 10B today to do just that while maintaining the balanced link.

db

Recently I changed out the interconnects and speaker cable between my C-5xeMP, K-5xeMP and VX-5 Twenty from single-ended to entirely balanced Cardas Golden Reference, and the difference was immediate. I estimate having about 300 hours in, and still keep noticing improvements, but basically it has really smoothed out (just talking about from the time of initial balanced installation). Compared to single ended, the performance I'm getting now is apples to oranges, a different league.

The reason you notice improvements may be due to you breaking in a new connection. On the QX5/20 you only need to break in the DAC, but on the preamps and amps you need to break in each connection. It will get better all the way up to at least 500 hours. Its' the amount of silver used in the leads etc... Crazy isn't it?

Not quite true; on the QX-5 Twenty you actually need to break in each digital input as well.

My dealer had only used the streaming interface on theirs and when I borrowed it and used the coaxial and Toslink inputs it sounded quite harsh and brittle.

A few months later after my dealer had broken in those inputs I borrowed it again and it sounded quite a bit more musical.

In my case I think, it was the breaking in of a whole chain, from source to preamp to amp to speakers. Hard to say if the improvement is the sum equivalent to the breaking in of three connections, but I'm happy with the results.

I was just going by what the folks at Ayre told me about break in. I only use the optical for my TV so I don't even notice much differences.

It's difficult, because analog break-in makes sense, needing to break-in a path that just transmits either 0 or 1 doesn't, but there are still components in the path that may or may not need a signal applied to break in properly.

Regardless, I think that break-in of the analog side is much more important.

Charles Hansen advised me to not insert even a balanced bass manager between the K-5xeMP preamp and VX-5 Twenty amp, so the setup is simply balanced from C-5xeMP disc player to amp. The sound is superb. I was advised it's OK to use single-ended from the preamp to subs that supplement LF, so I will be using low-pass from a Beveridge RM-3 with a 100 Hz card -- only control is level of output. I'll try to sell the too hastily bought Bryston 10B.

db

I have a single-ended Bryston 10B connected to the single-ended output of a KX-5 twenty and previously to a K-5xeMP. No effect on the balanced output of the preamps.

As I understand Hansen's position, there is no problem with that unless you interpose the 10B between the preamp and amp. I had planned to high-pass to the amp above 100 Hz, low-pass to the subs below 100 Hz using a balanced 10B and was advised not to do that. Now I plan to only low-pass to the subs, staying out of the preamp-to-amp link. Does the output of your 10B go to an Ayre amp?

I suppose I could try both, because counterposed to what I understand is a zero feedback issue I suspect the LS50s would be well served by shunting frequencies below 100 Hz from them.

db

Single-ended output pair from the KX-5/20 goes to 10B, which drives a quad amp for a sub, and one balanced output pair goes to a VX-5/20 to drive quad esl 63s. The esls get the full frequency range but drop off below 45Hz. The bass is only for 20 to 50 range. 10B is set at 30HZ with second order filter. I modified the circuit so the volume control is on the low pass circuit. In my case each channel is attenuated 1db. Passive summing of two channels for single bass.

That seems to be the setup Charles Hansen recommends if you are using a sub, i.e., nothing intervening between the balanced preamp and amp connection and using single-ended for the sub.

db

I'm close to doing the deed and getting the KX-5 Twenty.

Man, I love my K-5xeMP but keep going back to GregGale's and others' remarks about the not so subtle difference between the two preamps. I always try to take things with a grain of salt but have been left foolish each time I've upgraded.

Sorry, I recall a post that said Ayre's prices have gone up but can't find it now. What's the current price for the KX-5 Twenty? Thanks.

I was studying up on the Twenty myself...reading everything I could. Some people think the "Plain" KXR is better in their system than the Twenty. Why spend another 9-10K if you don't have to? I'd try to compare both before pulling the trigger. Might be the best 10K you ever saved.

You're thinking of the -R series price hike last month.


I haven't laughed that hard in a while. Thanks for the comedy break.

Wasn't meant to be a joke. Ive got no skin in the game. Perhaps the Twenty's that were Demoed were brand spanking new and not broken in...as compared to the KXR that was already in their systems. Some of the comments may have come on this board. If I find them I will copy the comments here. Did you have the KXR before purchasing the Twenty?

Of course - I purchased the KX-R just after its release and then upgraded to the Twenty years later. I'm intimately familiar with both pieces each over several years.

The KX-R Twenty is not an upgrade, it's not "better", it's a completely different preamp that shames the original release.

My KX-R was only about eight months old when the Twenty upgrade was announced, and when I demoed the Twenty the improvement was so large, if I had heard the latter first I never would have purchased the former.

That Ayre even allows you to upgrade is a sign of their commitment to their customers.

I was informed by my dealer that the prices for the KX-5 and VX-5 Twenties went up to $9950, respectively, earlier this month.

Guys, I have no skin other than owning Ayre gear. I had a QX5 for a few months and then sent it back for the 20 upgrade (knew about the upgrade and got a dealers demo the day I found out knowing I'd send it in). It too is a totally different component. Not even close to the original other than they both sound great. The price difference is MORE than worth it if you have the funds. JMHO.

My dealer has agreed to take my K-5xeMP on trade-in for the KX-5 Twenty, so going to place the order in a bit.




Order placed, woohoo.

I think you mean your AX 5 CT.

Tech, yes, I remembered that last night after shutting down the computer. Welcome to my MS world, lol.

Here is one of the comments I found I was referring to in my earlier post.(Steve Hoffman Forum) Anyway...I might be picking up a KX-R Twenty tomorrow. Working on a trade...Fingers crossed.:banana:


"You may want to give the 20 version a listen at home if possible David.
The reason I'm saying that is because I also have the original KX-R pre. When the 20 version first came out a friend purchased one, after a long run-in period I borrowed it from him and demoed both back to back at home for about 2 weeks. After much listening I preferred the original, but just barely. As wonderful as the new 20 was it was just a tad to sterile sounding. Don't get me wrong the two were very, very close sounding but the original KX-R added just the right amount of warmth, for my ears. Both ( audio type ) friends that were in attendance agreed, including the owner of the KX-R 20.
I don't know how the 20 combo would sound together in comparison, as I chose and prefer a Levinson power amp with my KX-R."

The Twenty in this scenario likely had not run in enough.

One of the areas in which the Twenty is head and shoulders above the original is in terms of warmth and soundstage, with the original KX-R sounding slightly cold and bright, something I never even noticed until I compared it directly with the Twenty.

Depending upon the age of the Levinsons in question, I could see where an older Levinson might make a good match with an original KX-R as the former's darker presentation might go well with the original KX-R's slight edge.

Bill, it's funny as that was my concern with the earlier Ayre products. I liked, but didn't love them. I am sensitive to bright sounding gear as many can figure out by my posts. I'm so careful with system matching. I only purchased the AX5 when I did as I knew I would be in the first batch for updates (got it from a dealer).

Thanks for the input. I just bought a Used one today for 12K +NIB Pair of Revel F208's...so I guess 15K total. Looking forward to getting it!