Ayon CD Players: CD-1 and CD-3

Howard.
Keep me posted on your findings. The Ayon specs alone are very impressive. It's much cheaper to get a good CD player than new speakers. Ha.
I like it that Ayon has a money back guarantee.
Sally

Sally,
I purchased the CD-3 unit from USA Tube Audio about 2 months ago and just started to do critical listening about 2 weeks ago now that I purchased a Pass Labs preamp. Overall, I’d have to say that the CD-3 is quite impressive. The sound quality in terms of musicality and detail are what I like best about the unit. I had a Musical Fidelity before and the high end tended to be a bit grainy and thin as opposed to the CD-3 which is much more realistic and with much more detail. Low end is better as well -- it is not mushy but rather has tight punch. The unit is built quite impressively – solid and simple. The anti-vibration features built into the feet are pretty cool and the remote is almost absurdly solid. One factor that made me ok with a sizeable purchase like this is the level of support from USA Tube Audio which included everything you could ask for: service with very quick response times and courtesy.
John

The CD-1 looks similar to the Raysonic 128 and certain other parts are also the same (Sony 213Q transport). Is the "Made in Austria" component extra circuitry or tweaking done after initial manufacture (in PRC?).

Hi sboez23,

The Ayon Audio CD-1 and the Ayon CD-3 were in manufacture for sometime before Raysonic presented their, Copy.... of the Ayon's. Many manufacturers will use Sony, Phillips or other transports, since just a handful of electronics firms make them. Actually the cases look similarm but they are really quite different and without a doubt, other than the transports used, the circuit design, internal boards, tubes, components which most are from Germany, parts used in the Ayons; the two brands are in no way the same, but dramatically different. How do I know this, I previously owned a Raysonic and when I purchased the Ayon, I opened them up and compared them. Different as night and day. By the way, the factory and the distributor also confirmed this for me. Hope that helps.
MLK

the tube output stages also function quite differently
than the Raysonic and Shanling.
The Raysonic uses 2 tubes for the S/E output(middle two tube #2 and #3) and 2 tubes for the XLR output (outer tubes
tube #1 and #4)
The Ayon CD-1 incorporates all 4 tubes in it's output stage
which consist of 2 6H30 tubes and the oversized caps associated with them along with 2 6922.
The CD-3 uses 4 6H30 tubes.
The shape of the Raysonic,Shanling and Ayon look similar,however,the size of the Ayon's chassis is different than that of the Raysonic and Shanling.
The Shanling and Raysonic are essentilly the same chassis with both compainies products chinese made.
Raysonic has a base in Canada,however,it is a Chinese company along with Shanling.
Don't get me wrong there are some fantastic Chinese based compainies out there now including Cayin along with Raysonic and Shanling.
The Ayon is Made in Austria where the Euro is much higher than the US dollar making the Ayon a great value for what
it's being offerred at here in the US.
That same being said for the Raysonic and Shanling where production and labor cost are still very low in China allowing them to also offer a great value product.