[ctsooner]

The QX5 is Ayre's best sounding DAC by far. Never tried to hook up their players to it. I have a Marantz Blue ray hooked up to the sp/diff input of the QX5 and it sounds WORLDS better than it ever has. Good luck.

Also, keep in mind that ripping your CD's and playing them back will usually sound much better than playing the CD. Proper ripping is needed, but when done properly, it sounds better. I'm have ordered The Memory Player, which has proprietary ways to rip and lower jitter to ridiculous levels and the sound is the best so far. Not even the Aurender N10 sounds as good. If you go to their site and read up on what they do (some of their tech can even be put into your computer based servers and upgrade their sound greatly). (NOT A COMMERCIAL EITHER). It's just about the stuff that they are able to do, that was my point.

Computer based tech is not easy and most have yet to figure it out. I think that going forward it will have to become easier for all of us adn also sound better. This is what happened to digital since it's inception. It's taken a long time to get to where 16/44 sounds as good as ti does and it will sound even better once the ringing and jitter are gone.

Hope you are able to figure out the hook up and get the great sound that the Ayre gear has in it's DNA.