Ayre C5xe or APL 3910 ?

Ozzy, I'm sorry that you remember buying Sonic Frontiers equipment. Where is that stuff now? Maybe Anthem or some other reputably established company will rescue you from APL as well once Denon pulls the plug. Or maybe you can just "upgrade" to the forthcoming APL Teac/Esoteric mod in advance. Those slackers at Denon and Teac must gape in awe as their ineptitude is exposed by APL. Yes APL is clearly in a different league. Surely APL will "improve" the Ayre as well. Unless the dacha in Varna is paid for.

I heard the Ayre unit a few weeks ago at a local dealer and was greatly impressed with the unit. The true test for me was when the sales rep. played a Reference Recording of Water Music (Ravel?) which didn't make me cringe. Digital playback of piano 95% of the time sounds too harsh, to my ears.

In fact, the sound of the hammers striking the strings was quite palpable. I began to think of ways to afford the unit, but @ $6K, its out of my range, not to mention that I don't need or desire a universal player. Still it was quite an audition.

Ozzy your comments about an upgrade requiring a purchase of new equipment is generally true, but not true with Ayre. They have a factory upgrade "path". All the newer Ayre products have the "e" for evolution in their name and you can send your old non-e version back to the factory for upgrade (not free). I upgraded my Sonic Frontiers Line 3 to Signature at one time also.

Again I auditioned the c5xe and it sounded stunning. Better then my Sony XA777es, BAT, Boulder, and to my ear Cary. Ayre's zero feedback designs would be impossible to provide in any realistic mod after market

Russellrcncom you should look into the Ayre C7e. Not as good as the 5 but 98% for half the price. I'm pondering that cost vs deminishing returns delema right now.

Ozzy, I'm a bit confused, you say the APL is in another league, but you also said you never heard the Ayre? No offense, just asking.