Ayon and Octave

As a C1 owner I have never heard the Ayon series. But I do own the Octave V70SE. My Octave dealer does have a used V70 but I never heard it so I can't comment what the differences are between it and the SE version. My SE does have a balanced input and the V70 does not. Also my SE has a 3rd (pre)driver tube that the standard V70 does not. Last I've been told that the output transformers on my SE are the same hand wound ones the V80 and up uses. The Octave is a fantastic unit and is distributed by Dynaudio. One option I did add to my V70SE is the black box. It increases the capacitance by a factor of 4. That really really lowered the already low noise floor and increased the dynamics. To me the octave has the musically and prat of the naim line but the control of the burmester line.

I'm happy

Forgot to mention that Octave has only been in the USA for about 2 years. Octave (located in Germany) has been in business for over 20 years. So there may not be too many Octave owners in the states.