What do you do with Ayre?


Please help! I've been looking for cables (interconnects and p/c's) for days to use with my Ayre pre/cdp and Paradigm active speakers. The more brands I see, and I've looked at a lot, the more perplexed I become. I suppose I'd like all my cables to be from the same company. Any thoughts, suggestions, ideas, warnings, etc. will be greatly appreciated!
sammie
Thanks everyone for the suggestions...I'm continuing to use Synergistic Research Resolution Reference Active XLR's and am very happy with the results. These are cables I purchased about halfway through this thread.
Sammie, regarding p/cs: Currently, am running a TG Audio SLVR p/c from my Ayre CX-7 with outstanding results..occasionally a used SLVR will turn up on audiogon for $300 to $400, depending on age and condition. Highly recommended with the CX-7.

By the way, I am getting ready to demo Synergistic Research speaker cables this weekend...it'll be interesting to see how it will sound in my system:

Ayre AX-7 integrated
Proac Response D15 speakers
Ayre CX-7
Linn LP-12/Ittok/Adikt
LFD Mistral phono preamp
I decided to go with Synergistic Research based on reviews and feedback from two other Ayre users. They are not broken in completely yet, so I can't comment on how they sound.
Sean: good to see you posting again. And in response to your question, yes -- the Ayre electronics in combination with the Alpha-Core Goertz cables and the Vandy Model 5's make a terrific sounding setup. Wish I had the money to upgrade to those components.
Sd: I bet that is a pretty nice sounding system i.e. Ayre electronics feeding Goertz speaker cabling into Vandy's. I could see how that might impress as it sounds like a nice combo of equipment. Too bad Sammie isn't looking for speaker cables : )

Sammie: Given the fact that you need longer interconnects, you may want to start looking at capacitance figures. Running a high capacitance interconnect can tend to mute the treble response of a system, let alone if one has to run a much longer interconnect. The increased length compounds the effect of the high capacitance, elevating the potential for even more softening.

With a longer cable, the geometry of the conductors and / or shielding also comes into play. The added length of low signal level cabling makes it easier for RFI and / or EMI to influence the system. Only problem is, wire geometries and shielding that tend to keep RFI / EMI out of the system tend to raise capacitance, so you are kind of at odds with yourself in that regards. This is yet another reason why shorter interconnects are preferred in an electrical sense.

The use of a twisted pair of conductors can provide both a low capacitance route and a reasonable amount of RFI / EMI rejection at the same time. The use of high grade conducors encapsulated in a small quantity of high grade dielectric may be your best approach here. This approach works pretty well for most any electrical application ( IC's, speaker & AC ), but it may not be optimum for any of those given applications. It is kind of a "universal" approach that should always provide at least "very good" results IF the above criteria are applied. The fact that this is both a relatively easy to achieve geometry and one that is commercially used for other applications can only benefit the end user. This is especially true if one is resourceful in looking for products outside of the "audiophile approved" market. Sean
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For what it's worth, my local Vandersteen dealer uses Alpha-Core Goertz speaker cable to connect his Ayre demo gear to the Vandy Model 3-series and Vandy Model 5-series speakers. After hearing the Alpha-Core speaker cables in this setup, I bought a bi-wired pair of MI2 cables and have been extremely satisfied with them.
Ayre voices all of their components to work best with Cardas cables. The Ayre brand cables are even made by Cardas. From what I've been told, Ayre recommends all except the Neutral Reference for listening purposes.