Ayre Acoustics CX-7 CD Player
 Now that we're starting to creep out of
the depths of winter (please, oh please, oh please!), the "getting and
having" magazines are full of the spring menswear forecasts. This year, the keynote
for the nattily attired man of fashion is colorful stripes. That means I have even
more chances of not matching my suit, shirt, and tie. I hate when that happens.
That's probably why I like single-box CD players. There are
no transport/DAC matching problems, no tricky interconnect questions, no
clock-synchronization issues -- nothing for me to get wrong. I just load a disc and press
Play.
Nor is it just simplicity of use that's attractive. From
the staggeringly expensive Linn Sondek CD12 to such surprisingly affordable players as the
Audio Research CD-3 and the sadly now-discontinued Classé CDP-10, some of my favorite
listening experiences have been with single-chassis CD players. It's not that I can't hear
the improvements wrought by no-holds-barred budgets -- sometimes I can, and have -- but
keeping things reasonably sane seems to inspire many designers to do their best work.
Any way you look at it, Ayre's CX-7 ($2950 USD) would
appear to be a product after my own heart: It's a beautifully stylish one-box player that,
without costing an arm and a leg, does one thing and one thing only. It plays CDs pretty
darn well. Who could ask for anything more?
Fashion is that by which the fantastical becomes for a
moment universal
Ayre makes two more costly digital
players, the D-1x (+$8000) and the almost-as-expensive DX-7 ($5950), but both are aimed at
the listener who needs DVD (read: multichannel) capabilities. So, although you could use
either of the others in your stereo system, the CX-7 is Ayre's sole two-channel front end.
That's a good way to think about it, because the
CX-7 isn't a scaled-down anything. Like everything Ayre builds, it feels and looks
reassuringly solid. The slim unit is 17.25"W by 4.75"H by 13.75"D and
weighs 25 pounds. Its brushed-aluminum façade is uncluttered, sporting a centrally
located, recessed window containing the disc drawer and display, and two vertical rows of
four buttons to its right.
The rear panel is uncluttered but far from minimally
accoutered. It has single-ended RCA and balanced XLR outputs, an AES/EBU digital output, a
user-switchable digital filter (marked Listen and Measure -- more on this later), and an
IEC power-cord socket.
The CX-7 uses a DVS CD-ROM transport, which feeds data to a
24-bit receiver chip, which sends it through a two-stage digital filter. The first level
of this filter is controlled by that rear-panel switch -- Listen offers gradual low-pass
filtration, and Measure is the steeper option. According to Ayre, this stage upsamples the
signal to 176.4kHz. The second stage of filtration "oversamples the data to
1.4112MHz" before passing it on to a 24-bit Burr-Brown PCM1738 chip, which again
splits the signal processing into two parts, processing the upper six bits with "PCM
architecture" and the lower 18 bits with "a five-level sigma-delta architecture
operating at 11.2896MHz."
Those are pretty fancy digital innards, but the CX-7 takes
a nicely minimalist approach to its analog stages. The analog output is direct-coupled,
with no capacitors, DC servo circuits, current feedback, or loop voltage feedback.
I am always true to you, darling, in my fashion
I auditioned the CX-7 in a variety of systems -- my usual
suspects. Amplification components included the Krell
KAV-280p/2250 combo, the Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista 300 integrated amplifier, and my
old standby in-house reference, the Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista preamp and Nu-Vista 300
power amp. Speakers included the Amphion Xenons, Focus Audio Signature FS-888s, and Wilson Audio Sophias.
My current reference cables connected everything: Shunyata Research's Aries interconnects
(balanced for the Krell and Ayre, single-ended for the Musical Fidelity), Lyra speaker cables, and PowerSnakes
Diamondback cables.
My other setup trick was suggested to me by neighbor John
Atkinson -- I scattered a few of Ayre's Myrtle wood-block "footers" on the lid
of the CD player to randomly damp the resonances of that large metal surface. Was there a
measurable difference? Probably not, but it seemed to tighten things up, and I could
conceive of no way in which it could have hurt.
The glass of fashion, and the mold of form
Speaking of differences real and imagined, I kept switching
that digital filter between Listen and Measure, looking for a consistent difference
between the two. If there's a setting that makes an "improvement" across the
board, it eluded me. On some recordings, I preferred Listen -- I would think. Then I'd
listen again in Measure and I'd wonder. Back and forth, forth and back -- I could spend
the entire evening listening to the same disc, getting more frustrated with each
repetition. What fun.
I'm not saying the two were indistinguishable -- although
on some recordings they were -- only that I could not find a significant and consistent
difference between the two that would give me a one-size-fits-all preference. And I'm the
guy who hates ambiguity, remember? I decided to take Ayre at its word and just set
the darn switch to Listen -- and did so, to a wide range of music, and with great
pleasure.
You want to map out your CD collection according to each
disc's performance according to filter slope? Go ahead -- at least the CX-7 gives you the
choice.
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion
In fact, "choice" is a great description of the
CX-7. Its deep bass, lively pace, and luxuriant balance of airiness and detail never
failed to please.
Even while I was fixated by my geek-like insistence that I must
prefer one digital filter slope over the other, I couldn’t fail to notice the CX-7's
dynamic resolution. The player was a champion at sorting out the shades and nuances of a
master musician's technique -- say, the way David Russell coaxes tones out of his guitar
on his extraordinary Plays Bach [Telarc
CD-80584].
Russell is a master of touch and pace, and the Ayre brought
these qualities to the fore. Russell wrote his own transcriptions of these works, and his
use of dynamic shading, combined with an uncommonly free sense of tempo, give these
familiar works a new sense of life -- sometimes, as the CX-7 revealed, startlingly so.
I have a composer friend who refers to Bach's music as a
"sewing machine." You just crank it up and it rattles on to the end, he says.
Perhaps that's true of bad performances, but in the hands of an artist -- Russell, for
example -- it surges and sighs, revs and slows, and creates constant surprises. The Ayre
CX-7 revealed these subtle time and loudness cues as have very few other CD players
I’ve heard.
Of course, just because a player can retrieve those subtle
cues doesn't mean that the differences are subtle themselves. Sometimes they can hit you
like a freight train slamming into a tumbleweed, as with the superbly well-recorded live
album Out in California [Hightone HCD 8144], by Dave Alvin and the Guilty Men. The
dynamic changes are still there, but on Out in
California, they make up the big back beat of "American Music,"
"Who Do You Love," and "Haley's Comet." The Ayre's slam and deep bass
presence built on that foundation -- the result was music that was as physically moving as
it was nuanced.
You want to feel your music? You sure you can handle
it? Check out the Ayre CX-7.
One had as good be out of this world as out of fashion
The CX-7 replaced the Classé CDP-10 in my reviewing queue,
and the $2000 CDP-10 would seem to be a logical comparison -- except that Classé has now
retired the '10. However, since the Classé is a known quantity, I'll use it anyway.
Russell's Bach sounded great on both players. The Ayre
emphasized the guitarist’s lithe rhythms and muscular thrust more than the Classé,
but the CDP-10 integrated the guitar farther into the venue's acoustic. That may or may
not be what you're looking for -- depending on my mood, I interpreted it either as less
midrange detail (bad!) on the CDP-10's part, or as an excessive delineation of it (also
bad!) on the part of the CX-7.
Darned ambiguity.
With the Dave Alvin CD, however, the Ayre just captured the
rude mechanics of the rock'n'roll energy of the band's set. It also captured the sense of
the sound coming off the band's amps within the large halls the set was recorded
in. I don't mean that the Classé was overly polite, as this seems to imply -- in fact, it
did a great job on capturing the energy of the recording. The CX-7 just did it better. It
caught more energy, more funk, more hall -- more of the stuff I love the record for. More
is better.
Finally, I listened to my beloved Carla Bley -- Looking
for America [WATT/31 CD], with its fabulous exploration of our national anthem (called
"The National Anthem," as it so happens). This is another piece that surfs along
on wave after wave of dynamic change and rhythmic change -- but these are basic musical
building blocks, so what's wrong with that?
"The National Anthem" burbles along on Steve
Swallow's bass line -- his poppingly percussive attack and rounded, silky-smooth tone
offer a primer on contrast all on their lonesome. The Ayre caught the weight of his
strutting walking-bass line with greater authority and swing. The difference between his
weighted and elided syncopations were more extreme than those reproduced by the Classé.
The brass -- whether Gary Valente's signature buzz-saw
trombone or Lew Soloff's stratospheric trumpet -- had more bite, more rude presence with
the CX-7. This is another area where some listeners might want less of a good thing,
because the real thing can be uncomfortably loud and blatty -- but that's preference. To
my ears, at least, the Ayre came closer to the sound of the band as I’ve heard them
live.
This does not mean I have less regard for the CDP-10. It
remains one of my favorite CD players precisely because it balances so many factors so
well -- and it sold for two-thirds the price of the CX-7, which has to be considered as
well. There's no question that the CDP-10 is the better bargain, but there's also no
question (in my mind, at least) that the CX-7 is the better player.
Following the unreasoning laws of markets and fashion
When you get right down to it, there's no single perfect
match for anything. It all comes down to taste and choice.
The Ayre CX-7 CD player is tasty and choice. It's
solidly built, well-engineered, and delivers the music about as well as any player I've
heard. Better than many I admire a great deal, in fact. At $2950, it can be considered a
bargain only when you compare it to the very finest players available, but that's
precisely what you'd need to compare it to. In that company, it is a
bargain.
And name a season when that's not in fashion.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhifi.com
Ayre Acoustics CX-7 CD Player
Price: $2950 USD.
Warranty: Five years, transferable (transport mechanism is warranted for two years).
Ayre Acoustics, Inc.
2300-B Central Ave.
Boulder, CO 80301
Phone: (303) 442-7300
Fax: (303) 442-7301
E-mail: info@ayre.com
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