List of High-End Digital Source Owners on Head-Fi

[purk]

Wow..a lot of headfiers own EMM Labs units!

[Mister Crash]

What surprises me is the absence of the Ayre models on the list. Considering the seemingly constant praise that I've read about Ayre elsewhere, I was expecting at least one Head-fier to have one.

[greggf]

The Ayre thing surprises me, too. I was just in the process of looking at sources, and had the Ayres under consideration, but decided against them.

The folks at Stereophile and at Audio Asylum seem ga-ga over them. I wonder why the headphone folks are less enthusiastic?

[Asr]

Ayre seems to do the technical things right - discrete components, differential balanced output (optimized too, Ayre prefers balanced output), zero global feedback. For balanced systems, Ayre should be one of the go-to brands, they're known throughout the industry as one of the few proponents of balanced output (and discrete designs too). But the CX-7e that I owned I just didn't like sonically. I plan to audition the C-5xe later in the summer - who knows, I might end up switching.

[J-Pak]

I have a North Star M192 ($2500). In my experience it performs well above its price point.

[Zanth]

I often listen to an Ayre and I find it is alright...but given the money spent I'd certainly look elsewhere (Reimyo would be my top choice)

[Icarium]

Lolz. I see a lot more brands models on the list now and the price point has dropped from 3.5k to 2k. The reasoning seems to be "my source totally holds its own with the best."

Seems like a slippery slope.

Imo it's only a matter of time before someone tries to sneak an Imod into this list because its sound totally is comparable to high end cd players.

[Asr]

Heh, well the price point won't be going any lower. As I said before, $2K is generous if we're using the term "high-end", pretty much the only reason I did that is because I'm aware of quite a few sources between $2K-$3.5K like the Electrocompaniet ECD-1 (owned by krmathis) and the Arcam FMJ CD36 (owned by HiWire) that don't really deserve to be cut off from a list like this. If that has to include sources I don't think are high-end like the SD Transporter then so be it. (But at least the SD Transporter uses a pretty good DAC, the AKM AK4396.)

The many sources punching in right at $1K or just above (Benchmark DAC1, Lavry DA10, PS Audio Digital Link III, Apogee Mini-DAC, CA Azur 840C, NAD M5, et al) are not high-end, those are either studio-grade or just products that think they are, so there!

[Icarium]

Yeah you definitely approached this the right way by using an objective delimiter i.e. money rather than a subjective one i.e. personal opinion.

Sadly this conflicts with some peoples' personal opinions.

Like mine! I don't think any of my sources can be considered high end.

I'd really only put the EMM labs units/Esoteric p03/d03 and p01/d01/APL NWO 3.0 in that category personally.

But again subjective versus objective.

Might be worth it to sort the list by price? With a disclaimer that price does not imply quality.

[robm321]

Please add me to the list: Modwright Denon 3910 'Universal Truth Mod' - I prefer it to the EMM labs and most CD players I've heard. A true bargain at $4-5000.