The Ayre disc intrigues me. I’m willing to spend $20 to try it, despite the cat-calls from the peanut gallery.
I consider myself lucky in that a dealer friend brought over a bunch of ICs when I was first getting into audio. He just said "try them". He didn’t tell me the price or what to expect. I could clearly hear differences even though my system wasn’t very resolving. It would seem that, once one gets into the habit of deciding ahead of time, absent any listening, what works or doesn’t, it’s extremely difficult to extricate oneself. Apparently, the only consolations to be had are congratulating oneself for one’s (supposed) intellectual superiority and accusing those who are not similarly afflicted of being fools.