I won't repeat much of what was said in those discussions, but in brief, Ayre refers to the QX-5 Twenty, released in July 2016, as a digital hub because, while it is at heart a D/A processor, its full complement of digital inputs and its 100-step digital-domain volume control allow it to perform as the prime component in a digital music system. In three videos, Michael Lavorgna talked about the QX-5 Twenty with Ayre's principal development engineer, Ariel Brown, and software engineer Brendan Boyle and separately, in two one-on-one conversations, with Charley Hansen, Ayre's founder and head of innovation. And so, in April, the very same unit that Michael Lavorgna had reviewed, and that we'd used for Tight Lines, took up residence in my system. I played the hi-rez master files on my MacBook Pro using Pure Music 3.0, and we used an Ayre KX-R Twenty preamplifier to increase the QX-5's balanced output level to match the Studer's input sensitivity.įollowing the analog transfer session, the QX-5 Twenty was returned to Ayre, but I was so impressed with its sound quality that I asked to borrow a sample at a later time for a full review in Stereophile.
As my colleague Michael Lavorgna had very positively reviewed Ayre Acoustics' QX-5 Twenty digital hub ($8950) for our sister site in November 2016, and Sasha's own system is based on Ayre components, we borrowed Michael's review sample. Feeling that audiophiles would want an LP that at some stage was "analog," we therefore needed to choose a D/A processor to drive the Studer open-reel tape recorder we were going to use. As you can read in the article we published about this project, for the vinyl release we decided not to master the discs directly from the hi-rez files, but to create an intermediate analog tape master. Throughout the summer and fall of 2016, I worked on a project with Stereophile contributor Sasha Matson, recording, editing, mixing, and masteringfor release on 180gm LP, CD, and high-resolution downloadan album of works that Sasha had composed for various chamber ensembles: Tight Lines.
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