I found it surprising that some people still keep saying Ayon is from China. The fact is not entirely correct.
Ayon is an Austrian company. It’s top line models (CD2/CD3/CD5/S3/S5/Triton/Orthos/Crossfire/Sparks/Sunrise, etc) are all made in Austria.
However, in its early days, the budget, low end entry-level models (Orion, and possibly CD1, may be Spirit I) were *assembled* in China with the same Austrian parts in trickled down designs. Ayon pull the plug rather quickly, as QA issue and copyright infringement (remember Raysonic???) seem to be too big a baggage for Ayon to bear.
Not to digress too far. I owned my share of VAC and Ayon equipments. VAC is just better in terms of warm and lushness, but relatively less reliable / less tolerant than Ayon. I never had Ayon serviced nor it showing any temperament. A few VACs however, either died on me, or pick up weird ground noises / hums, or overheating tubes that need immediate action, or sound bad/weird if the power line isn't clean . Don’t get me wrong, when everything goes right, it’s hard to pick against VAC. Just make sure you have everything right to operate an VAC.
Ayon is an Austrian company. It’s top line models (CD2/CD3/CD5/S3/S5/Triton/Orthos/Crossfire/Sparks/Sunrise, etc) are all made in Austria.
However, in its early days, the budget, low end entry-level models (Orion, and possibly CD1, may be Spirit I) were *assembled* in China with the same Austrian parts in trickled down designs. Ayon pull the plug rather quickly, as QA issue and copyright infringement (remember Raysonic???) seem to be too big a baggage for Ayon to bear.
Not to digress too far. I owned my share of VAC and Ayon equipments. VAC is just better in terms of warm and lushness, but relatively less reliable / less tolerant than Ayon. I never had Ayon serviced nor it showing any temperament. A few VACs however, either died on me, or pick up weird ground noises / hums, or overheating tubes that need immediate action, or sound bad/weird if the power line isn't clean . Don’t get me wrong, when everything goes right, it’s hard to pick against VAC. Just make sure you have everything right to operate an VAC.