I lived with Ayre’s AX-5 Twenty integrated amplifier for a few years and I’ve reviewed a bunch of Ayre gear so I feel I have a good grip on Ayre’s house sound. I am more than happy to report that the new 8-Series products sing with a similar voice.
In my experience, the most compelling gear transcends Class, topology, and type to leave us in the presence of music seemingly unadorned. As if our hifi opens a giant door through which we fall into the world of song. One lovely thing about hifi is there’s not one door, not one single best opening. Instead, there are many voices for just as many rooms and the Ayre KX-8 preamp and VX-8 power amp offer a very compelling view onto what ever music I sent their way through three pair of speakers—the YG Summit (review), Rockport Atria II (more info), and the Barn resident DeVore Fidelity O/96 (review).
I’m going to focus on the pre/power combo, KX-8/VX-8, to get things going as their voice remained consistent with each pair of speakers with one standout quality, and it’s something I’ve come to expect from Ayre—a silky smooth yet highly resolving presentation—that acts as invitation to explore music as deeply and thoroughly as your time and attention allow. This kind of sound is something the hifi generalizer might typically attribute to tubes but as the KX-8/VX-8 prove, you don’t need tubes to avoid glare or a metallic sheen that can come with some solid state gear. And while we’re here, I’ve heard tube amps that sound harsher than skeletons copulating on a tin roof so generalization-busting cuts both ways.
The Rockport Atria II arrived about a month ago and they’ve been making music on the Barn’s A-Side ever since. While I’ll hold off on giving too much away, I will share that the Atria II offer stunning resolution that exceeds every speaker I’ve reviewed in Barn to date. Stunning resolution, and the Ayre KX-8/VX-8 combination brought out this quality and more with no qualifiers needed, which is about as high praise as I can think of for a pre/power combination that cost about 1/3 the price of the Rockports. Sure, price is no guarantee of quality and more money doesn’t necessarily buy better performance, but in the case of the Atria II it does and the Ayre combo was in no way outclassed in this context. Impressive.
With the YG Summit, the Ayre KX-8/VX-8 combination brought these 3-way bruisers to rich, full life in Barn, offering music-inspired full range power, purity, and delicacy. Again, there were no shortcomings of note in this system context, just clean, clear and all consuming musical goodness, ripe and ready for exploration.
The KX-8 preamplifier houses plenty of familiar Ayre tech including the true variable gain volume control that brings with it a number of sonic gains including excellent signal to noise numbers even at low volumes according to the company. As is the case with all Ayre products, the KX-8 is a fully-balanced, zero-feedback design and offers 2x balanced XLR inputs and 3x single-ended RCA inputs, along with balanced and single-ended outputs and a pair of AyreLink RJ45 ports to allow one remote the ability to control multiple Ayre devices. Ayre offers its digital options—Roon Ready Ethernet, USB, and Digital Inputs—if you want to turn the KX-8 into a streaming DAC, too.
The spartan front panel, that matches the Ayre CX-8 CD player, QX-8 Digital Hub, and EX-8 integrated amplifier, includes two buttons for power and input selection, a small blue LED display, balanced and single-ended headphone jacks, and volume control all wrapped in anodized aluminum. My thoughts about the KX-8 (and the rest of the 8-Series products) boils down to what I said in my review of the EX-8 from 2018—I’d ask for little more sexiness in its appearance—to which I’d add some dampening so the chassis doesn’t ring when wrapped with a knuckle.
The VX-8 Power Amplifier offers 100 Watts into 8 Ohms and 170 Watts into 4 and includes the familiar list of Ayre tech inside including a 100% Zero-Feedback design, fully-balanced discrete circuitry, Double Diamond output stage and Equilock gain stage, and a linear analog power supply. Being the newest amp in the lineup, Ariel Brown, Ayre’s President and chief technology officer, has improved on the performance of the EX-8 Integrated, the basis for the VX-8’s amplification, which will get trickled up the line with new models to come.
As you’d expect, the VX-8 includes balanced XLR and single-ended RCA inputs as well as balanced XLR and single-ended RCA outputs for use with a subwoofer, in addition to two switches to select input mode (balanced/unbalanced) and subwoofer output (stereo/mono). An IEC inlet, power switch, Cardas binding posts that make me regret my choice of banana-terminated speaker cables, two AyeLink RJ45 ports, and a USB input for firmware upgrades complete the backside.
I will note that the VX-8 ran warm to the touch during its entire Barn time playing music 24/7 for weeks on end without issue.
The CX-8 CD Player relies on an ESS ES9038Q2M DAC chip for D to A conversion while employing Ayre’s Minimum Phase digital filter, single-pass 16x oversampling, a custom digital clock, the now familiar combination of Ayre’s Diamond output stage and Equilock gain stage with a fully-balanced, zero-feedback analog circuit, and linear analog power supply. The CX-8 offers single-ended RCA and balanced XLR outputs, two AyeLink RJ45 ports, and you can add Ayre’s digital options—Roon Ready Ethernet and USB Inputs—to turn the CX-8 into a one-stop shop for all your digital needs. The review unit came equipped with the Ethernet option but as you can see, the chassis for the KX-8 and CX-8 are cut and ready for every option.
The familiar front panel adds a super smooth operating CD drawer and multi-function control wheel for CD playback functions. The included plastic Ayre remote provides complete control as well.
I had the opportunity to compare the Ayre CX-8 to the Technics SL-G700M2 Network/SACD Player (review), which costs less than half the price of the Ayre, and the CX-8 offered a more compelling musical picture overall with a greater sense of ease coupled to a richer, fuller sound palette. While the Technics player offered compelling performance and exceptional build quality that to my eyes and fingers bettered the Ayre, my personal preferences tilted heavily toward the Ayre’s more relaxed and to my mind more organic sound.
For another unfair comparison but going in the other direction, I preferred the Mola Mola Tambaqui (review) to the Ayre as streamer/DAC and I only mention this in terms of system building concerns and the exceptional performance of the Ayre KX-8/VX-8. Getting back to the Ayre/Rockport combination and thinking in system-building terms, I greatly preferred the Mola Mola and totaldac d1-unity matched with the Grimm MU1 (more info) in that context, price aside (although it never really is for most of us). All to say, the Ayre CD spinner as streaming DAC offers a lovely, organic, and engrossing sound but not one that is on par with more expensive separates.
Beth Gibbons of Portishead fame released her solo outing out of season with Rustin’ Man, aka bassist Paul Webb of Talk Talk, in October of 2002 and it remains a magically mystifying record no matter how many times I spin through it. The album credits over 40 musicians playing all manner of strings horns, organ, and more and cover as many genres. I’d call it kinda weird in an odd sorta way, some of my favorite types of music. Nearly unknowable.
Compared to playing this same title from a CD rip or streaming, the CD playing offered a more incisive presentation, where edges, attacks and decays came into the Barn with more definition as if the rip and streamed versions had been lightly sanded for a rounder less precise sound. While I don’t find this to always be the case, where the CD offers a more compelling sound, it was the case with the CX-8, the degree to which I preferred the CD was in part dependent on the quality of the recording, where better quality recordings seemed to highlight these differences.
In any event, with the CX-8 as player and streamer paired with the KX-8/VX-8 driving the DeVore O/96 on the B-Side, I easily fell under music’s spell regardless of source, sounds, and genres. The Ayre stack’s organic silky rightness served all of the music I sent its way.
While I was here, enjoying the various characters Gibbons embodies on out of season, I leashed the Focal Clear Mg to the Ayre KX-8 for some intimate listening time. Here, with the Focal’s stunning clarity, air, and color in play, the Ayre’s qualities seemed the perfect match for the Clear Mg, bringing Gibbons and Co’s sparkling delightful sounds directly into my brain’s pleasure center like tiny sparks of light. Once again, nothing, not a thing, stood out to fault with the Ayre’s creamy yet highly refined presentation.
Moving back to a focus on the KX-8/VX-8 driving the DeVore O/96, I recently found This Is The Kit’s 2017 album Moonshine Freeze, a lovely folk-inspired psychedelic-tinged record lead by Kate Stables and produced by longtime PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish. For this round of listening, I let the Mola Mola Tambaqui handle the digital duties as it offered a more compelling sonic picture than the Ayre CX-8, as one would hope for more than twice the CX-8’s price.
Horns, banjo, guitars, synthesizers, piano, bass, drums, and Stables’ crystalline clear vocals twist and turn around a meditative loose structure. Here on the B-Side of the Barn, Moonshine Freeze took up residence as a distinct cast of characters laid out in space, perfectly sized with real physicality for some deep, tangible listening. Nice. The DeVore’s can dig about as deep into the heart of music as any speaker I’ve heard and the Ayre KX-8/VX-8 let them shine.
I enjoy Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds softer side nearly as much as their harder stuff. 2001’s No More Shall We Part is a standout softie, a trembling orchestrated affair with Cave singing out with genuine longing and sorrow. “Love Letter” remains a favorite ‘test track’, and I say remains because it has been a go-to song when I want to test a system’s emotive chops. With the complete Ayre stack passing off its output to the DeVore O/96 I was treated to a very full helping of sorrow, regret, and longing in the form of a letter, a love letter, sent out as a plea, a petition, a kind of prayer. This is Nick Cave at his sorrowful best, his voice sharing pain and a hopeless kind of hope and this system pulled at memories of personal sorrow in a deeply moving manner.
Summing up the CX-8 CD player, I recommend it for people with lots of CDs who also enjoy streaming in a price-comparable system. When system building with higher priced and more resolving gear, I would opt for a separate streaming/DAC solution like the Mola Mola Tambaqui. To clarify, the reason this notion came up to begin with was just how well the matching Ayre KX-8/VX-8 combo played in the bigger leagues with the YG Summit and Rockport Atria II. In these system settings, the CX-8 as streaming DAC seemed to be the weakest link.
For comparisons on the pre/power front, I don’t have anything on hand near the Ayre KX-8/VX-8 combo’s price and to my mind the Ayre’s distinct sonic qualities set it apart from most competitors. The Cambridge Edge NQ Preamp/Network Player & Edge M Monoblock Power Amplifiers come to mind (review) and are in the same rough ballpark as the Ayres price-wise and here I would give the KX-8/VX-8 combo the edge (pardon the pun) when it comes to resolution and that silky smooth Ayre refinement. The BAT VK-80i Integrated Amplifier (review) offers an interesting contrast with its rich, brutish drive that delivers more weight and solidity compared to the Ayre pre/power pair. I’m not picking any winners as I can imagine different people with different rooms and systems preferring any of these fine pieces of gear, which is one of the beautiful things about hifi, at least in my book.
When you get down to it, Ayre gear has a house sound that is exemplified by its ability to balance superb resolution, clarity, and drive with a smooth as silk refinement that brings music into vivid, colorful life. While you can get more, in my experience you’d have to pay more leaving the Ayre KX-8 Preamplifier and VX-8 Power Amplifier combination with my highest recommendation.
Ayre CX-8 CD Player
Price: $5450, +$800 USB, +$1000 for Ethernet
Ayre KX-8 Preamplifier
Price: $6400, +$1300 X-8 DAC (1AES, 2 SPDIF, 3 Optical), +$800 USB, +$1000 for Ethernet
Ayre VX-8 Power Amplifier
Price: $6800
Company Website: Ayre Acoustics
