Esoteric X03SE vs Ayon CD-2 or CD-5

Well Thanks anyway, I'm going to try the Ayon player

Hello audio friend. I just spotted this forum topic. Not only have I compared these two players, but all three. I am both an Ayon dealer ( actually, Ayon rep and Canada's premier dealer ) but I also carry ( carried / now past tense )the Esoteric and have extensive experience with all 3 players. The Esoteric is a very good player, it is uick, detailed and spacious yet I find it balanced toward " performance " more than " musicality ". It gives you all the audiophile ooo's and ahhhs, but again, I have found it to be a player that focuses more on shear brawn delivery... For an extremely lazy sounding system, perhaps an EL-34 tube based system, it might be a good choice.

The Ayon players just seem to integrate just the right balance of performance and musicality blend. They too are very quick, detailed and spacious, but without the hard edged " here's your damn music " presentation if you know what I mean. The tubes output provides a supple and rich harmonic signature and detail, but never crosses the line becoming analytical or clinical sounding like the Esoteric can within most systems. The CD5 is simply over the top, and any reviewer whom has heard one will vouch for this. With a world class pure class A tube preampilifier output, many customers of mine who only have one or two sources are just selling off their existing preamplifiers and running direct to amp. Whats more, the CD5 offers USB, XLR, RCA direct inputs for streaming audio, PC connection or music server.Turntable owners who happen to have an outboard MM/MC phono pre, also benefit in yet another additional way by running their phono preamps outputs into the back of the CD5, thus producing an upsampled analogue signal from your turntable! You seriously have to hear this. One of my customers runs a full blown LP-12 through a Linto phono stage directly into the RCA inputs on the CD5, which technically then upsamples the analogue signal through the CD5's onboard pure tube DAC. Ayon is a forward thinking company, and the retail price of a CD5 with all these additional facilities, AND a world class tube cd player starts looking more like a helluva bargain against just another expensive redbook cd player that can only play cd's. If the Ayon CD5 or CD2 could only do redbook cd's and nothing else, it would STILL be well worth the price of admission at full retail when sonically compared to anything else out there. The CD2 and CD5 I cannot keep in stock, these units are my best sellers. I stopped carrying the Esoteric line months ago, when customers heard the CD2 and CD5 against the Esoteric, the results are constantly the same. The Ayon players are the ones to beat. Good luck to the competition.

Greg
www.imageaudio.info

Audiojudge: have you ever compared the CD-5 to Wadia 381, Emm Labs CDSA SE or Audio Aero Prestige SE - all players which have got an excellent reputation too ?

I have owned the Ayon CD-2 and the PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC+Transport. The Perfect Wave combo is simply much better. The "street" price is around $4K new from a number of e-tailers, including Underwood HiFi. The lowest price I have seen on a new Ayon CD-2 is $4400, although they go for less used. The Ayon CD-5 seems to sell for more than $8K. The review of the Ayon CD-5 in the latest issue of Dagogo is worth a read. At the end, the reviewer ranks a number of players at different price points. The PS Audio Perfect Wave combo comes out significantly ahead of the Ayon CD-2 but trails the Ayon CD-5. So if money is no object and you want to spend an extra $4K, give the CD-5 a whirl. Otherwise, if you want to stay in the $4K range, the Perfect Wave is the better source hands down. The Ayon CD-2 veers towards brightness and borderline aggressive dynamics and is somewhat lacking in high end resolution. The Ayon CD-2 has a lot of fans on Audiogon, which is why I bought the CD-2, but it took little time to determine that the Perfect Wave trounces it. Even my wife (who cares very little about audio equipment) commented when the Ayon was in my system that the "other one sounds better", referring to the Perfect Wave gear. Obviously, you were not asking about the Perfect Wave gear, but I figured this information might be of interest, as few people have compared the Ayon CD-2 to the Perfect Wave combo at the same time in the same system...