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with a glorious phono stage and carvedfrom solid style build.

The new K-5x/V-5x pre/poweramplifier combo weighs in at just under£7,000 the pair, and shares some of themost luxurious casework I’ve seen in a good while. You could argue that ifHansen had really wanted to makeaffordable high-end he could have gone for less extravagant casework, but I suspect that in many parts of the worldif a component doesn’t lookhigh-end it won’t beconsidered thatway, however

good it sounds. It’s a tribute to products

like the Groove phono stage thatit has made its mark so well despite arather self-effacing appearance. With theAyres you get beautifully machinedinsets for switches, lights and knobs anda machined plate for every surface. It’sthe sort of finish that makes even Chordproducts look almost ordinary.

Inside the K-5x pre-amp you will findfully balanced, zero feedback circuitry,both being key features of Ayre’s designphilosophy. Ayre’s first power amp the V-3also featured choke input filtering andmeasured much as you would expect to find with a tube amp. The balancedaspect runs so deep that single-endedinputs are restricted to a grand total oftwo plus a tape output. XLR balanced

inputs add a further two to the roster togive you a rather limiting four inputs.Unless you have at least one balancedoutput equipped source component this makes the K-5x rather difficult toincorporate into most systems. One wayround this is to convert the balancedinputs with XLR to phono adapterswhich Ayre, among others, can supply.

This obsession with balancedinterconnection has yet to take hold in

the UK but on the North Americanhigh-end scene I get the

impression that you’d belaughed out of the club if youtried to sell a single-ended only

component. The advantages ofthe approach are not always obvious

though. I’ll grant that the plugs andsockets are far superior and don’t makenasty noises through the system whenyou pull them out, but unless you haveyards of interconnect there don’t seem to be any sonic benefits. In fact it wouldseem that the opposite is the case. RCAphono plugs actually seem to soundbetter when connecting single endedcomponents. Balanced connection does of course have its advantages when it comes to fully complementarycomponents, especially if they’reseparated by more than a few metreswhere the noise abating aspect of thetopology comes in handy.

The distributor also lent me theAyre CX-7 CD player. As you may haveread in the last issue the CX-7 is anexcellent CD player and it’s not hard to see why I was encouraged to use it.

Getting back to the K-5x pre-amp,despite a dearth of SE inputs it doeshave both SE and balanced outputs

Ayre Acoustics K-5x Pre-amplifierand V-5x power amplifier

by Jason Kennedy

If audio components had star signswould you have to get one that wassympathetic with your own? I’ve heard of more far fetched reasons for selectingcomponents, but I’ve not come acrossan amplifier which uses planetarysymbols to identify its inputs. The Ayre K-5x is a new pre-amplifier from anelectronics company which featuresstars and planets where one wouldexpect to find legends like CD, tuner and the partner baffling classic, aux. The five symbols on the front of the K-5xare even less useful to those unfamiliarwith the system’s set up but at least theyare attractive and a whole lot morememorable than the numbers adoptedin some quarters. Little badgesfeaturing matching star, planetand shooting stars to stick on the front of your recordplayer, CD player and tunermight help though.

Ayre is a ten year oldcompany run by Charles Hansen in Boulder, Colorado - a place whereluxurious aluminium casework is thenorm or so it would seem if you look atthe Ayre components and then think ofthe brand named after the city - theremust be a great metalworker there. Priorto founding Ayre, Hansen designedloudspeakers for Avalon Acoustics suchas the original Eclipse, but he’s movedon since then and his goal with this company is to make high-endelectronics that don’t have silly pricetags. Hence the brand’s range topping K-1x pre-amp comes in at just over$7,000, which while hardly bargainbasement stuff is not excessive for whatsounds like a pretty stunning product,

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for the power amp and a “Theater”mode for use with surround soundprocessors, which is basically a fixedlevel in/output which effectivelybypasses the pre-amp and allows thepower amp to drive two of the channelsin a 5.1 system. If you want to combine

stereo and

multichannel systems this is one of the bestapproaches available. Volume isadjusted by a proprietary balancedcontrol with FET switches and metalfilm resistors, output level is displayedon a big blue LED display and acompact remote is supplied toadjust level, change input,extinguish the display and mute asrequired. The microprocessor whichhandles all these features is shutdown at all times except whenresponding to your whims, so iteffectively ‘sleeps’ in order to minimisesignal contamination. Only the selected input is grounded so unselected inputs are effectivelydisconnected when not in use, whichwill nullify any potential cross-talk.

The V-5x power amplifier is asubstantial 25kg block with some of the most unusual speaker terminals I’ve come across. Basically they are a means of holding both positive andnegative terminals of the cable with one clamp, a system that’s designedexpressly for the spade lugs preferred in the US. I had to use adapters in order

to terminate my 4mm banana plugequipped Townshend DCT cables.(These are the same posts used on theAvalon Ascendants and will accept4mm plugs at right angles. Ed.) Inputsare switchable between phono andXLR and there are also balancedoutputs for use in bi- and tri-amplifiedsystems or with sub-woofers. Power

output is specified at 150 watts a side at eight ohms, with adoubling into four ohms. Whichis not a claim that many ampmakers are prepared to make. For the purpose of attemptingto keep wheat and chaff inneat little piles I didn’t just putboth amps in place of mynormal Bryston BP25/Gamut

D200 combo but took things one at a time, substituting the

preamplifier first. Once I hadestablished that the source Eikos

CD player was plugged into thecrescent moon rather than Saturn inputthings got rather entertaining. BobbyHughes’ scando-latino vibes expandedin scale and took on a life and

energy that madethe Bryston’s approach seem positivelyrepressive. It should of course beremembered that the venerable Brystoncosts half as much as this silver beautyand thus some improvement wasexpected. But the scale and presencedelivered exceeded expectations and

negated any chance of the Brystongetting in on the act until the Ayres had left the building.

The K-5x has a full bodied soundthat revels in tonal colour, shape andtexture, very valve like in fact with thesame tendency to increase scale. Thescale seems entirely natural, it’s a bitlike you are hearing the harmonics inall their glory as opposed to the merelythe fundamentals. It’s not as though thepicture has been expanded but morelike there’s greater resolution of spatiallyrelated information. The hubble-bubbletoking intro to the Peace Orchestra’smagnificent Domination sounds as if it were recorded in an aircraft hangarwith this pre-amp. It always revealsreverb but the scale here seems to be in another league. It made me wonderwhether combining Ayre electronicswith the Totem Forest speakersreviewed last month would be toomuch. They are also unusuallytransparent to reverb, unfortunately they were no longer around otherwise it would have been interesting to see if I could have broken into the fifth dimension with the right

Hawkwind track!Adding the V-5x power amp

in place of the Gamut D200(Mk3) added more space again to the proceedings, the

soundstage expanding inwidth by a substantial marginand certainly increasingboth up and back, thoughnot to the same extent. Low-level resolution seemedto improve once the twounits were paired up and

dynamics certainly didn’t suffer. There was a slight reduction in bassgrunt, the Gamut’s extra 50 watts andslightly tighter approach deliveringgreater impact, but it was not a difficulttransition as both power amps areclearly excellent but have strengths in slightly different areas. Timing forinstance is very good with the Ayres,the groove picking up in a subtle

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but distinct fashion when somethingsuitably rhythmic came along. Thesound is also unusually natural for a transistor pairing with instrumentsrendered with convincing tonal colourand body.

The brand new nature of this pairingmeant that it was not fully run in and I suspect will not get to that point till

way after the deadline.

As a result thesound I got with my LivingVoice Avatar OBX-Rs was slightlyforward of neutral and didn’t encouragehigh level listening, more’s the pity. It lent them a lively, even loud, balancethat I’m told calms with time - two orthree hundred hours ofuse are required beforethey are fully on song.

Further listeningrevealed a quite uncannyability to spread soundeither side of the speakers,this effect is almost like theQ-Sound phase manipulationused on some albums(Madonna’s Greatest Hits beingthe only one that comes to mind!).It’s as if you’re getting surround sound from two speakers, yet if there’sa strong central image that remainswhere it should be and doesn’t seemstretched. The soundscape is very much cinemascope, this would make a great 2.0 home cinema system.

Moving on to the voice of youth, orEminem as he’s better known, this wasslightly more aggressive than usual butfull of detail and energy, a presentationmade all the more persuasive by the

distinctly quiet background. It seems a little odd that the noise floor on sucha disc should be notable but this is notwo bit recording and responds well toincreases in dynamic and signal tonoise range.

Just to test the tubeworthiness of the K-5x preamp I put it up against myBorder Patrol prototype, a comparisonwhich made the transistorised unitsound marginally less transparent, fuller and a shade less natural. But it

was surprisingly close forsomething so sophisticated. I also brought in a pair ofB&W CDM9 NTs to give

the power amp somethingslightly less easy to wrestle

with. This brought about agreater sense of control and

precision to the proceedings andclearly didn’t give the V-5x any cause forconcern. The pairing delivering greaterbass depth albeit less engaging music.

The arrival of the Ayre CD playerimproved matters rhythmic rather nicelyand proved

itself to beextremely effective at

delivering the musical message. I haven’t been able to immerse myselfin Radiohead’s latest offering (Hail tothe Thief) largely because it has failedto inspire with previous equipment, but the Ayre partnership made aremarkable job of revealing what theband were trying to do. The superb lowlevel resolve bringing out all the subtlestrands and building them up into a gripping musical experience with

nearly as much power as the band’sopus OK Computer.

This is clearly a first class pair ofamplifiers: build quality is exemplaryand better than most achieve even attwice this price. But more importantlythe scale and presence that it reveals is transporting. This combined with a sweet sense of timing makes for a very compelling experience and one which I’ll have trouble forgetting- and that’s not the sort of trouble I often suffer with!

EQUIPMENT REVIEW

Ayre K-5x

Type: Remote operated

pre-amplifier

Inputs: 2 balanced, 2 single ended

Input impedance: 20 kOhm (per phase)

Maximum Input Level: 4V - unbalanced inputs,

8V - balanced inputs

Frequency Response: DC - 200 kHz

Maximum Gain: 4dB - unbalanced outputs,

10dB - balanced outputs

Dimensions (HxWxD): 44 x 12 x 35cm

Weight: 11.5 kg

Price: £2950

Ayre V-5x

Type: Stereo power amplifier

Power Output: 150 watts per channel/

8 ohms, 300 watts per

channel/4 ohms

Gain: 26 dB

Input Impedance: 100 kOhm (per phase)

Frequency Response: DC - 200 kHz

Dimensions (HxWxD): 18 x 46 x 41cm

Weight: 25 kg

Price: £4495

UK Distributor:

Path Premier

Tel. (44)(0)1844 219000

E-mail. premier@path.co.uk

Manufacturer:

Ayre Acoustics

Net. www.ayre.com

TECHNICAL SPECIF ICATIONS

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