EQUIPMENT
REVIEW
22
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Australian Hi-Fi
Ayre Acoustics
C-5xe Universal Player
Ayre Acoustics is the product of just
one man’s vision, and if his products are
any example, it’s pretty obvious that Charlie
Hansen’s vision is 20/20. He’s also a man of
considerable convictions, such as ‘fully bal-
anced circuitry performs best’, ‘only zero feedback
circuitry delivers completely natural perform-
ance’ and the necessity of conventional lin-
ear power supplies with multistage fi ltering.
Not surprisingly, he’s incorporated all these
concepts—and more—into a product that to
my knowledge is unique in two ways. First,
although the C-5xe is a ‘universal’ player that
will play back CDs, SACDs and DVD-As, it has
only two-channels, so when you’re playing
multi-channel SACDs and DVD-As, you will
be hearing the two-channel downmix. Sec-
ond, you don’t need to connect a video moni-
tor to do any disc navigation when playing
back DVD-As. You can instead navigate en-
tirely with the C-5xe itself.
The Equipment
When I lifted the C-5xe out of its carton, out
dropped a manual for the K-5x preamplifi er
and this, combined with the weight of the
wrapped component, made me think that
local distributor Advance Audio must have
sent the wrong demonstrator by mistake. But
when I removed the wrapping to reveal the
C-5xe, I realised partly why, at 12kg, it was so
heavy. The build quality is massive. Likewise
when I looked inside, the power supply would
put quite a few amplifi ers to shame, with its
two huge Mercury Magnetics transformers.
One of these powers the transport (which is
made by Pioneer) and decoder, via eight dis-
crete regulators. The other powers the Burr-
Brown DSD1792 DAC, the Sony CXD2753
DAC and the associated audio circuits, via no
fewer than fourteen discrete regulators. As for
that missing manual, it was as close as Ayre’s
excellent website.
The physical appearance of the C-5xe ap-
pears to be a ‘Boulder, Colorado’ thing, because
that’s where Ayre is located, and where it builds
its equipment. But the ‘look’ is very similar to
that of Boulder amplifi ers, which also hail from
Boulder, Colorado. Despite this, I am reliably
informed that the only thing the two compa-
nies have in common is a suburb. The C-5xe
looks beautiful. The front panel lines are super-
clean and attractive whilst also being distinctly
‘different’ from the usual run-of-the-mill. As for
that control knob… it’s actually two controls: a
central circular ‘rocker’ switch surrounded by
a concentric ‘joystick’ ring, with both recessed
into a cut-out with curiously rounded edges.
The outer ring has the ‘Play’ control at the top,
‘Next’ (and ‘Forward Scan’) at the 3’o’clock po-
sition, ‘Tray Open/Close’ at 6-o’clock and ‘Back’
(and ‘Reverse Scan’) at the 9-o’clock position.
The inner toggle switch has just two actions:
‘Pause’ at the top, and ‘Stop’ at the bottom.
When playing DVD-Video discs (only the au-
dio component is available, of course!), press-
ing ‘Stop’ initiates the usual DVD ‘Resume’
mode, so you can take up where you left off
any time you like just by pressing ‘Play’ again,
or clear the memory by pressing ‘Stop.’
Ayre’s remote control at fi rst seemed
downright weird, sporting icons I’d never
seen before, complete with multi-coloured
LEDs (red, green and orange). The icon that
looked like stars falling from the sky turned
out to be the ‘Random Play’ button and the
one containing the symbol that looked like
a fi sh activated the remote control handset’s
in-built illumination, which lights LEDs built
into the Stop, Pause, Play and Track Skip but-
tons. The remote has a particularly useful fea-
ture we’ve never seen before (and one that has
‘Charlie Hansen’ written all over it!) whereby
if a button is pressed for much longer than
expected (such as might happen if the remote
is placed upside down, or slips down the back
of a couch cushion) the microprocessor inside
will automatically disconnect the batteries so
they won’t go fl at in the interim. My only
possible complaint about the remote is that
it’s not overly elegant, though this is only par-
ticularly noticeable when you compare it to
the C-5xe itself.
The back panel of the C-5xe is far busier
than most. First and most obviously, there is
the choice between balanced and unbalanced
analogue audio outputs. The primary advan-
tage of balanced circuitry is that it inherently
rejects noise and interference, though this is
usually only useful when you’re running low-
level signals over long distances… though it
can be useful in eliminating mains hum if
you run a signal cable close to a 240V power
cable—either one attached to a component,
or one hidden inside a wall. Connectors are
22-27AyreHFJul08.indd 22 6/06/2008 9:45:04 AM
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