Any information on the new Ayre C5xe player?

According to Steve at Ayre the first manufactured lot went primarily to Asia. I've been notified that I will be able to audition the C5xe sometime at the end of next week.

I had the C5xe in my system Sunday and what has been reported is true, redbook playback is vastly superior to the CX-7 and better than CD playback on a D1-X. SACD playback is very good, and these comments are about a player that did not even have 100 hours on it yet. I am leaning very heavily in the direction of this one-box. Charlie Hansen and his team should be proud of their new baby. Frankly, $6K is a very reasonable price for the C5xe.

SRP is $6K and I expect there won't be much room for negotiation if this platform is popular. I can't tell you how good the redbook playback will become, having auditioned a new player in my system. But I can tell you that, with less than a 100 hours, it was very revealing and was better than my 588 at defining the soundstage. It was a bit forward, as you might expect of a new player, but the C5xe is a superb, dedicated two-channel CD/SACD platform. Fit and finish are also outstanding, though I'm not in love with the noisy drawer.