Ayon Triton or Spirit III with Dynaudio C1's

I would use a combo of Tube Preamp and Solid State Amp. Dynaudios LOVE clean power. You can push them hard with a high power amp and they will take it. They need lots of power to open up. Tube amps are not a great match for this speaker. Unless its a high power one like ARC.. The Triton is only 125 watts a side....it will work, but is it the best match?? not really.

Matt,
I have heard the C1's with the Octave v40SE (without the black box). Not really impressed. Switched to the Sim Moon Audio 600i and that made all the difference in the world. Image specificity, wide soundstaging and transient snap all fell into place. The Moon 600i is my first choice for a solid state amp. I really like the sound of tubes and was impressed with Ayon on RMAF. I'm hoping this makes for a great synergistic combination. Just not sure, as you said, it would be enough power.

Bruce

While I cannot help with most of the amplifiers in question, I am also in a somewhat similar situation. I have some c1s on the way (mk1) and own a variety of amps. I previously owned the mk2 paired with a Cary sli80 which was a great combo in my small room. I will be trying the mk1s out with a variety of amps including pass x250.5, octave v40se, exposure 2010s2 and mcintosh mac6700. We'll see how it goes.

What amp was driving the speaker that caused such a favorable impression on the two occasions? I admit a strong preference for good tube amplifiers, but only with an appropriate speaker. Some speakers are designed to be driven by transistor amps. The Dynaudio could possibly fall in that niche.

As a Dyn C1 owner that has upgraded to the C1 Sig I have to disagree/agree with Bruce. I also had the Octave V40se - V70se and currently have the V110.

That being said the original C1 needed to be cranked up (high listening levels)to sound their best. I've had a black box (not super). The black box lowers the noise floor and adds a bit more headroom. The V40 will work but again turn it up. The V70 was a bit better in that it had a hair more 'control' in the sound. Then I upgraded to the C1 Sig. The MKII/Sig DO NOT need to turned up to sound their best. They sound best at low/mid to high volumes. But I am not sure the MKII/Sig can be as loud as the originals. Moot point for me as I prefer low/mid to low/high volumes.

The V110 the last upgrade I've made and it offers a bit more control in the sound when in high (110W power) mode vs the low (70W) mode.

Experimenting with my dynaudio C1 signatures is been fun and rewarding. I start with SS system from Audio GD that was amazing for the money. All the detail and good high end stuff one could ask for. After a couple of years and having no experience at all with tubes I made a choice after much research and comparison between PCM and DSD to get a lampizator 4 DSD DAC and HQ player for my computer. What a surprise, not only I liked DSD better but also the tubes made the sound stage wider taller and deeper, textures, clearer and smoother sound, details on tones that to me sounded more like real live performances. After this dose of tube infection like a junkie I just wanted more. Next I rebuild my computer complete fan-less with linear PSU, Jcat USB card and DSD 512 capable, another big step on the right direction. Now I found a good deal on a used lampizator big 6, major steps forward. Finally I sold my Audio GD system to buy a Ayon Spirit lll generation 4 and never looked back. From the first listening sessions I liked this integrated a lot, but all though bass was definitely good it was not near as powerful as the SS gear. Then my journey with tubes and cables rolling began. After I research some NOS tubes and experimenting with it, the sound got moving in the right direction again from top to bottom, better stronger and deeper bass. Now for cables at the time I was using Acoustic Zen Holograms for speakers and Krakatoa for power with great success with SS system. Finally I started messing with cable rolling and wasn’t until I tried some High fidelity cables that I felt the system was rewarding me with great improvements across the spectrum, but it was when I added the High Fidelity CT-1 speaker cables that the low end came to a level I could not believe possible for a cable alone to accomplish . Anyways the Ayon spirit lll is a great integrated amp for the Dynaudios and more, they have enough power and great synergy.