[bmichels]

At CanJam, I Liked a lot the AYRE QB-9 driving a BHSE electrostatic headphone Amp + Stax SR009.

Now that I owe myself a BHSE + Stax SR009 I need a new DAC.

but.... Since the Stax SR009 can sometime be on the bright side, I need to be sure that the DAC Is NOT bright ! In fact I look for a DAC with a signature close to the QB-9, but just... better.

So my question is: is the QX-5´s sound signature In the QB-9 style (but better) or totaly different ?

--> Is the QX-5 warmer or brighter than the QB-9 ? Warmer or brighter than the DAVE ?

Thanks In advance for your advice for a very good DAC for my BHSE/SR009.

 

[music_man]

I just wanted to mention the 9038pro is the same thing as the 9018 with better noise specs. you really do not need a snr of 140. 120+ is plenty good. we like turntables and no turntable/preamp has even close to 120. they seem to have very nice crystal oscillators. they do not state what the jitter is. in fact they do not state most of the key specs just the features. they brag about the 9038pro. usually when a company is doing that it is because they are trying to detract attention from other things. you would think they would have bragged about ess on the codex not the qx-5 but no mention. 
 
don't get me wrong they both sound good, with the qx-5 sounding better. i am just growing not to like ayre as a company. probably why i had never heard of them before. that is just personal though. furthermore the qx-5 is physically to large for my application. these are just personal isues and should have no bearing on anyone else's choice. i am going to look elsewhere now.
 
furthermore, really great dacs do not use ess,akm or any off the shelf chips. they use proprietary "pics" or the likes. or r2r but does not do dsd of course. interestingly the directstream uses a custom chip and upsamples everything to dsd 10x then back to pcm. due to that conversion going on i found the codex better at 44.1khz. the qx-5 is obviously better as well.
 
nothing wrong with the qx-5. just my personal issues. just not the right product for me. it does sound very good however, i wil give that. it is indeed better than the codex. i just do not want to see an ess chip in a $9000 dac but again, just personal feeling.
 
even though the manhattan 2 has the same ess chip i am going to listen to it. it is a lot less money and smaller physically.
 
i also wonder if they went to the trouble to improve the ess chip it is still at 2x dsd. anyways, soon we will be discussing a new and better dac. even from ayre. dacs rapidly progress. that is why i prefer one with a programmable "pic" for the engine.
 
one other thing. apparently you can use none of these dacs at 32 bit in windows as it is limited to 24 bit. 32 bit would reduce noise more than going above 120+ snr. nonetheless the noise floor is already nill at 120+ snr.
 
i stated the qx-5 may use the headphone amp on the ess chip. to be honest i do not know the answer to that. since, once again ayre is very lacking at providing specs. which i find interesting. reminds me of transparent cable voodoo. for people that know what they are hearing but are not interested in specs. we here tend to be interested in specs. if you ask ayre their reply is that they do not release that information. also very strange that there are no pictures of the inside of a codex or qx-5 on the internet. almost every other dac has pictures of the guts readily available.
 
i am stressing that these are personally views. i will not defend them. feel free to have different feelings regarding these matters. i am entitled to my opinion. i do not think i have provided any misinformation. if i have i apologize. i am certainly not forcing my opinions on anyone. you are all welcome to do as you please. this is a public forum and i simply voiced my opinions. i certainly did mean to misrepresent anything. i have heard it. just not my cup of tea. just like many people have different opinions about the same gear in other areas. i do not stand to say that it does not sound very good. it in fact does. i just like to know more about what i am geting for $9,000. therein lies my motive. so i hope i have been transparent as to why i feel the way i do. everyone is perfectly welcome to feel as they please. please do not let my personal feelings sway you in any direction. i am solely voicing my own opinions.
 
i am looking for a better dac than the codex currently but it must be very physically small and as you can guess it will not be from ayre. of course the qx-5 does not fit the bill anyways due to size and unneeded features. not at all to say the codex is a bad dac. just looking to upgrade. not sure what the options are in such a small form factor either. the qb-9 dsd is okay but quite frankly i find the codex as least as good. so that would really be a parallel move, not an outright upgrade. yes, it is from ayre as well but i do not have a vendetta against them. it is just that the qx-5 does not suit my needs. i did admit it sounds very good. on that note i am extremely happy with the ax-5 twenty. the codex as well. i am just looking to upgrade it now. that is all. in fact i may look into modding it at this point. as many of you may know i modded successfully a teac ud-501 into a serious contender. so there may be potential right under my nose. i will start by opening it and look what i see could be improved. i do not feel the need for the 9038 as the 9018 is plenty competent. so that will probably stay put.
 
sorry for rant but if you take anything home from this it should be that i mean no ill intent and certainly not trolling. just voicing my opinion which i should be entitled to. if not i suppose the mods will just remove this. i don't think i have done anything wrong to state my feelings on a matter.

 

[BlackstoneJD]

apparently ayre saw this. as of right now, computer audio is on the bottom of the front page. i do swear the driver under the qx5 page made a sonic difference in the codex. could be placebo i admit. i will have to disassemble the drivers to see if they are the same. they did take it off the codex page which is a fact.

call it flame. i am just saying i would personally recommend the qx-5 if you need a preamp and music hub. yes, it is still better. i said closes the gap. i did not say as good. again, could be placebo. not sure yet. i would recommend the codex if you just need a dac. unless it is a very high end system than i would still get the qx-5 regardless. nonetheless i am fine with the codex in an otherwise six figure system. all i am going to say is i did not feel the qx-5 was as good as the diamond dac v. of course that is not entirely fair because the diamond dac v is 8x the price of the codex with the power base. look, there is always better., you can not dispute that. it depends what one has to spend and what they will spend pretty much

It's all good.

 

[eddprzz]

Im still waiting for ayre to release driver for windows 10 for codex

 

[robi20064]

music_man,
 
On the Arye driver part - out of curiosity - I was grabbing both from their site (listed under the Windows section) and from the Streamlenght site as well. The only difference are (both are 1.26 and rather old, dated back to 2013) vendor/device specific strings/IDs for obvious reasons, the rest are intact. I would not want to question your listening experience, but this shall not indicate any performance improvement at all for any of the listed devices.
 
On the "hunt for a small footprint quality DAC" I'm interested in models what you are considering. Personally having a Zodiac at home - partly due to it's small footprint - and thinking of upgrading once I have a proper contender, both in terms of quality and footprint. Was thinking about the Codex, not so sure anymore.. No personal objections against it, but being more interested in FPGA based solutions (like some of the Chord and Metrum models). If you are demoing anything and feel you want to share your experience with us, please do so here.

 

[music_man]

I agree with you robi. i would rather have a fpga solution. the codex remains pretty decent though. you are actually correct it is just the 1.26 driver with an ayre device id init. well, so much for that. sorry guys. to be honest though i could not buy a $9,000 dac that only has windows 7 drivers. quite frankly that is shameful. again, my opinion but i bet many share it.
 
i would like a reference quality dac say not bigger than the benchmark dac1/2.

 

[acap13]

I think Ayre is one of the best audio company around the world.they knew their stuffs and packed with technologies up their sleeves.besides just looking up at the ESS dac chips, digging up what Ayre could do to improve digital audio.

You could study the Ayre MP Series white paper. Ayre programmed FPGA based on their own on minimum phase filter. I believe this will be an interesting read when one is trying to weigh in and justify their future purchase.

 

[music_man]

You have to wonder about windows 7 drivers in 2016 then?

 

[acap13]

I understand bout that.it is quite unfortunate but i think Ayre must be working on it by now and will have the update later if not soon. I think.

 

[BlackstoneJD]

I don't understand the apprehension regarding drivers. The Streamlength driver works perfectly with Windows 10. I even game with it. The install process requires compatability mode but honestly I think Windows 10 has so much backwards compatibility it is a non issue. A new driver could very well be more problematic. New drivers are not always better.

I do hard core PC gaming and Streamlength is rock solid.

 

[music_man]

i get what you guys are saying. i just feel those purchasing a $9,000 dac(qx-5 twenty) for computer audio should not have to install in compatibility. true it makes no difference. the new drivers should have no affect on performance. to be honest i just feel it makes them look bad. i certainly hope they do release a new driver. they can design state of the art equipment with antiquated drivers. it just makes no sense to me. the truth is i think they do not want to pay for the driver but that is just a guess. nonetheless you guys are correct. it has no bearing on functionality. i just think it says something about such a high end companies image but that is just my feeling.
 
for the record the qx-5 twenty is much better than the codex. however i feel the diamond dac v is better than the qx-5. it should be at 8x the price. either the codex or qx-5 are a whole lot of dac for the money respectively. i apologize that i was just in a bad mood a few days ago. either one of these in their respective categories are outstanding solutions. the codex will beart 5 grand dacs imo. the qx-5 could easily be end game. other than dac technology keeps moving forward. i really have nothing bad to say about either of them in the end.
 
the driver can be flaky just due to ess but not due to the version of the driver. for instance it does not like some usb cables. or requires one to unplug the dac upon install. i have seen better drivers but that is not about the version. it is most likely just ess. a darn fiio has the same issues.
 
i do take back what i said in a bad mood. these are both fine dacs. with the qx-5 being exceptionally good. at it's price the codex is a huge bargain as well. i am just looking for a reference dac in a tiny box but seems not to exist. to be honest though the codex sounds plenty good in an otherwise very high end system.  i just do not have room for the qx-5 or i would have it right now..

 

[music_man]

acap13, the mp white paper would lead one to believe that the codex does in fact incorporate the fpga based filter. it says "all our current digital products incorporate these filters". unless the filter is not on an fpga. if you or anyone else can, please explain this. it incorporates the custom filters but they are not on a programmable fpga? it would be much more expensive to make the filter chip on a non programmable device. so does the codex use a fpga or not? if, not how do they achieve the filter? unless the codex is excluded from all current products. the qx-5 certainly has the filter on a fpga i can see. just wondering what other way they would incorporate the filter if it exists in the codex. as any other way would actually add much more cost. i do not understand this. it obviously has a filter i know that. perhaps not ayre's custom filter. which in that case regarding the mp white paper would be misleading.
 
i do like dacs that let one select filters. not the one the designer thinks is best. in that regard the teac ud-501/503 is also a great bargain but not quite at the level of the codex regardless.
 
i would just like to know how they have implemented the filter on the codex. perhaps it is not the mp style filter but an off the shelf chip or ess built in filter. listening to it i would doubt that but i do not know. again, it would be misleading to say "all our current digital products". someone can hopefully explain this.
 
also is the clock being used on the ess chip or is it ayre's design?
 
edit: i see per the mp white paper that the qb-9 had this technology. many including myself feel the codex sounds better than the qb-9. so i have no idea how they implemented the filter and clock. obviously they must have used some method to reduce cost i would imagine. given the units price. what they have done i have no idea. i do remember some mention of an outboard crystal oscillator but have no idea what type of chip is holding the filter. unless again, this does not apply to the codex. as that was written before the codex. nonetheless i feel they somehow got it to sound better than the qb-9. as do many other individuals. hopefully someone can explain these two chips that lurk with in the codex.

 

[ToddRaymond]

the truth is i think they do not want to pay for the driver but that is just a guess.

Hmm.

 

[acap13]

acap13, the mp white paper would lead one to believe that the codex does in fact incorporate the fpga based filter. it says "all our current digital products incorporate these filters". unless the filter is not on an fpga. if you or anyone else can, please explain this. it incorporates the custom filters but they are not on a programmable fpga? it would be much more expensive to make the filter chip on a non programmable device. so does the codex use a fpga or not? if, not how do they achieve the filter? unless the codex is excluded from all current products. the qx-5 certainly has the filter on a fpga i can see. just wondering what other way they would incorporate the filter if it exists in the codex. as any other way would actually add much more cost. i do not understand this. it obviously has a filter i know that. perhaps not ayre's custom filter. which in that case regarding the mp white paper would be misleading.

i do like dacs that let one select filters. not the one the designer thinks is best. in that regard the teac ud-501/503 is also a great bargain but not quite at the level of the codex regardless.

i would just like to know how they have implemented the filter on the codex. perhaps it is not the mp style filter but an off the shelf chip or ess built in filter. listening to it i would doubt that but i do not know. again, it would be misleading to say "all our current digital products". someone can hopefully explain this.

also is the clock being used on the ess chip or is it ayre's design?

edit: i see per the mp white paper that the qb-9 had this technology. many including myself feel the codex sounds better than the qb-9. so i have no idea how they implemented the filter and clock. obviously they must have used some method to reduce cost i would imagine. given the units price. what they have done i have no idea. i do remember some mention of an outboard crystal oscillator but have no idea what type of chip is holding the filter. unless again, this does not apply to the codex. as that was written before the codex. nonetheless i feel they somehow got it to sound better than the qb-9. as do many other individuals. hopefully someone can explain these two chips that lurk with in the codex.

Great question though i cant really say am an expert on this.But before this, i have discussed with my brother about Pono player which the internal circuit was designed by Ayre team.they implemented ess9018k2m with minimum phase filter which i believe they repogramme them on the off the shelf dac used(i'm not really sure though) and supposedly to be the same with Codex except for more sophisticated headphone stage and others.

Different to Ayre's higher end which has 2 selections of filters 'measure' and 'listen' which 'measure' has the FPGA custom from Ayre. I surfed the Ayre website and compared Codex to QX-5 which stated Ayre minimum phase filter(with FPGA) on QX-5 and minimum phase filter only(as in Pono player) on Codex. On the other side,based on the white paper,FPGA was done outside of the DAC chip. I once saw the QB-9 DSD circuit and it was Xillinx Spartan chip as used in all Chord Dacs.so i guess this is answer of how they managed to implement FPGA as their custom filter.

 

[music_man]

how could they reprogram the ess chip? afaik that chip is not programable? i think they must have some outboard chip even if it is not an fpga. maybe it is just an eprom.