Ayre CX7e vs. Meridain G08

I owned the Meridian G08 for a while and really never did warm up to it. I never liked it as much as I did my old 508-24 or the 508-20 for that matter(which has a warmer sound.) I personally think the Ayre player is better sonically. But like all things in audio, this is just my personal opinion. I owned the CX7e. It needs to be run balanced though. It is a very good player.
I was also not real impressed with the G08 build quality. It didn't seem as well built as the 508 series and the draw stuck from time to time(the little flap that covers the draw.)It had a much cheaper feeling transport.
There's some good players in the $3000 range. I would look and listen a while. You can't beat personal experience. Also, there's not THAT much difference sonically in some of the little lower priced players.

Zaikesman, In this case, I just didn't feel, to my ears, it sounded as good. You are exactly right about the transport. A lot of manufacturers have gone this route. I always felt it was because they couldn't source a better transport at their price points and were forced to adapt. Wether this technology is better---well---I guess everyone needs to make their own decision. They sure make for a cheaper product.
I have noticed higher jitter levels with this technology. This makes me wonder if the signal is as pure.
I know Wadia's players use a much higher quality transport and sound wonderful to me. Their jitter is very low. The older Meridian 508-24 hand some of the lowest measured jitter of any player. Just makes me wonder if manufacturers have adopted something because they had to and then market other specifications to put it on even footing.

You're correct in that I don't test for myself. I use Stereophile and other sources for these measurements. I have found that the players considered good today have jitter in the 240+ range. The 508-24 was around 144. You can go back and look at older top rate players of the time and see that jitter was under 175 in all of them. Even the old Sony XA7es had very low jitter and makes a lot of todays players look like junk. I know Wadia and some other manufacturers of higher dollar machines use excellent built transports.
My real beef is these newer players aren't as harmonically rich. They seem thin to me and the sound (again to me, sounds compromised.) Sure, they have great resolution but I think that comes with the overall tendency to lose harmonic structure and lighten the presentation. The 508-24 for example is richer BUT compare it side by side with the 588 or G08 and don't base it on what you remember it sounding like. The resolution is there. It's just richer. I think it's similiar to what folks try to get out of a good tube preamp.
Even the Ayre C5xe had jitter upwards over 250+.
Actually, I have not seen any player lower than 200 in quite a while.
All these levels of jitter are considered low but I wonder why the levels have increased. Of course, I don't think it's all jitter to blame but why have the levels gone up?
As for what Meridian would claim, I have never seen a manufacture not produce something that wasn't considered better than their previous effort.
Meridian use to be in the top tier. I don't see them there anymore. Seems either technology for CD players is peaking or not as much effort is being put into them.
I never saw anyone really brag on the Meridian G08. The 588 didn't get much coverage at all. I'm sure Meridians top stuff is good as well as it should for the price.
As for reclocking, I have seen numerous units claiming this.
Digital has so many buzz words that don't mean as much as manufacturers make out they do. With the slow decay in true CD players in favor of multiformat machines, I just don't know.
I have tried a lot of players at different price points. Of standard - non upgraded or tweaked units, I do like the sound of the Ayre C5xe even if it has a sorta cheap drive (that makes a little noise opening and/or shutting(kind of clunky.) The Wadia 861se is by far my favorite for sound and incredible build quality to boot with one beautiful transport.
The bottom line is---this is just my opinion. Remember, opinions are like butt holes, everyone has one!!!! I just look at the machines inside out, how they operate, measurements when available and certainly how they sound.
I think CD replay has sort of peaked unless you want to get off of mega dollars. Ultimately, most of these machines would make their owner extremely happy and that's what matters most. They are in the current good to excellent class with the current state of CD flux.
I know this was originally about the Ayre vs the Meridian. The CX7e does exactly what I've said it does. It lightens the presentation a tad but makes up for it with a more sonically pure presentation that goes deep and with wide soundstaging. The G08 had a sound I didn't care for. The presentation seemed a bit disjointed with some slight slurring of high frequency transients. It's a good player though. Just not for me.

Mr. Hansen, First let me say I hope you're recovering well from your accident and will be back over at Ayre soon.
Second, thanks for contributing to this forum. It's always relevant to have a designer with your reputation contribute.
I think you are absolutely correct in your statements. I have felt there might be a reason along these lines but I also felt JA would stay on top of his test equipment.
It was a surprise to see jitter at the level JA found with the C5xe knowing how good it sounds and what results from jitter. I also know your attention to detail in your products. Both the CX7e and C5xe are superb products in their respective price ranges.
Since JA does all of Stereophile testing, it casts doubt in my mind how much merit to give to some of these measurements at this time. It seems something is a little off.
I know test measurements aren't everything but I do believe certain parameters on a test bench do correlate to the sonic end result.
Keep up the good work over at Ayre.

I went back and read the CX7(not the CX7e) review from the May 2003 Stereophile. JA stated the CX7 had some of the lowest jitter(159 picoseconds of peak to peak) of any player he had measured.
The higher levels of jitter seemed to start showing up about 2 years ago or less. It would be interesting to re-measure that same player now.