Ayre QB-9 USB DAC

I just attended the Ayre demonstration of the QB-9 using the newest Ayre MX-R monoblocks, Wilson Sophia's. Steve Silberman was on hand to demo and did comparisons with the DX-5 beta product (to be released). He did A/B comparison with a Redbook Cd and complete explanation of the MAC and PC implementations. It was a very useful demo and convinced me the time has come to start ripping all my CD's.

I have to say, the QB-9 sounded great. Of course, the reference room at Music Lovers in Berkeley is pretty nice too, I don't have Wilson's, etc, so it hard to say what differences I would hear at home. I did not compare it to alternative DACs and wanted to hear the Berkeley Audio. Steve did start to convice me that SPDIF is a fundamentally flawed technology so that might rule that one out. The asynchronous implementation of USB really made sense to me and I have been developing and selling digital video technology for many years so I kind of get it.

Regardless, Ayre is a great company and the combination of a reasonably priced DAC with MP filtering, technical support,etc is just hard to beat. My Monarchy tube DAC (which sounds fine I might say) may hit the for sale ads soon.

I would refer you back to Hansen's white paper on clocking of data and how SPDIF clocks vs the USB Asynchrounous mode previously mentioned by Almarg.

The only problem with all of this is that some DAC chip designers have designs that are very tolerant of jitter because they already buffer the data onto the chip. IN the case of the Pico seconds of jitter as on SPDIF, the data is already de-jittered by the chip. This is what some video chip designers do.

So, the impact of jitter is not absolute but depends on the chip and implementation. Having said that, the best way around any issues with jitter is to buffer data and reclock it with a new master clock. As long as the device feeding the data (the computer in this instance) is able to keep up with the buffer requests, the DAC will never have to deal with a loss of data condition.

Yep, good advice, I plan on taking it slow and learning more before I jump in. I am currently playing with the J-River Media Player and have already discovered that I cannot Rip my SACD's with my current computer (I don't have too many anyway) I also need a bigger hard drive although a firewire drive is cheap these days. It is important to use firewire so you don't overburden the USB bus.

Anyway, will definitely be experimenting and trying things before purchasing but I think it is in the not to far distant future.

good to know, thanks Larry! I would prefer to have the drive powered by the USB port as well.

Just borrowed a QB-9 from my dealer. I am doing side by side comparison with my current DAC - My current system is:
Ayre AX-7e
Green Mountain Calisto speakers w/tweaked paradigm subwoofer.
Monarchy Tube DAC with NOS Amperex tubes.
Monarchy DIP with 96 khz clock,
Cables are all DIY magnet wire with gold connectors. Speaker wires are magnet wire also.
J-River with Windows 7 running WASAPI (I couldn't get ASIO4all to run on Windows 7)

The QB-9 is connected to balanced inputs, the Monarchy with single ended. I am able to play the CD closely synced with the computer output so I can instantly switch sources on the Ayre AX7 and compare side by side.

I noticed an immediate difference comparing the CD source with the QB-9. Soundstage is clearer, more space between instruments and more depth to the soundstage. Voices are focused and exactly where they should be. I really noticed the clarity of instruments in complex and dense musical passages. There also was more bass with fuller tone. Everything sounded more present and realistic. I compared probably 25 CD's of different music from classical to Hip hop with the same results.
I tried to get some 24/96 sources of CD's I already had but couldn't find any so I wasn't able to do a side by side comparison. I did find some sample 24/96 that sounded pretty darn good.

Honestly, I can see why someone who is used to tubes might find the combination a bit clinical and prefer the Monarchy, but for me, clarity and refinement is exactly what I am seeking.

Drubin - To clarify, CD playback went through the Monarchy tube DAC, Computer went through the QB-9. My preference was the QB-9 with computer playback.

I don't do rapid switching, rather, I listen to short passages of music (45 to 60 seconds) and focus on certain qualities or instruments, and then switch to the other source and listen to the same passage. That way, I limit what I need to remember. The first pass, I might compare bass, second vocals, third drums. It is helpful to me to switch without to much transpiring in between.

Maybe you can clarify what you perceive to be the issues with this and let me know what method you consider to be better.

Yes, this is the first review of this kind I have read for the Ayre. I have one and have had a very different experience with it, finding it very fluid and musical, with excellent timing and and staging. All around wonderful DAC for the money.

My understanding is that this DAC only plays at 16 bit resolution and downsamples 24 bit material to 16 bit. My experience with hi-res recordings is that the bit depth (24 bit) is more important than the sampling rate (48 vs 96). I also prefer balanced out since my system is balanced throughout.

Also, I don't think this is an asynchronous USB interface. Just too many technical shortcomings for me in this day and age. It would make more sense to look at a Wyred4Sound. Maybe it is the old-school sound that is appealing!