is ayre qb-9 dac better than cx7e mp?

Karma,

Your question is even more difficult than you may think. Unfortunately the axiom "Everything matters" is as true with computer-based playback as it is from more "conventional" sources. With a standard Mac using USB with a spinning hard disk, itunes, and the Mac OS you may get one result; with a solid state disk, different software, or a different interface you may get a completely different result.

Spend some time over at Computer Audiophile and I think once you get past the overwhelmed feeling you'll begin to develop a better sense of the issues and (hopefully) some direction. I'm in the process of doing that myself.

Good luck!

cheers for sharing, my friend's gone through the ripping and enjoying his download, and he too is in the process of upgrading his software, last time i was around his place he was using fubar? So I was just calculating if the cost of Cx7e mp could get me the DAC+Mac then I'm more inclined to the DAC.
I agree with you Aggielaw, everything matters!
I'm also concerning the fact that I'm moving back to the UK in about 3 years time, have to go through the hussle of converting the voltage to 220, so i might as well get the cdp and sell it. It's a tough one!

I have heard both in the same system and the QB-9 wasn't even close. The Cx7eMP was noticebly better. The QB9's biggest weakness was the lack of dynamics and slam. Very uninvolving compared to the CD player.

just read some stuff from audioasylum Charles from Ayre insisted that the dac is on par with cx5e mp, cx7e mp only sounds better cuz the dac is not fully broken in.
And also to maximise performance with dac, he said it's better to upgrade up to 8GB RAM, there are tests about Macbook pro sounds much better than mini+ with software like Amarra it makes top notch sound. Oh he mentioned pluggin the dac in power filter as well. So there you go.

I have a QB-9 and love it. I also have a Esoteric DV-50 and if there are any differences, they're too subtle for me to hear and rely on memory.

I also keep seeing the thing about the Mac and adding the extra memory changing the sound. (Could be from one source and repeated here and there). If adding memory does in fact change the sound, there's something "broken" on the MAC. It doesn't take a lot of computes with today's, or even yesterday's, hardware to take a PCM stream and send it out USB. The MACs problem could be sloppy software design unpacking lossless compressed music files and generating the PCM stream. Although I still can't think of a way this would change the actual output data from what was originally used when compressed. There's no variables, it's a deterministic transformation. I'm guessing it's "faulty recollection" that happens way to often in audio if not broken software. Also, all this assumes the MAC software does not process the resultant PCM stream before output or rely on some sort of system timing to generate the PCM.

My 1GB memory based Samsung netbook and external USB disk drive running XP sounds exactly the same as my Quadcore 6GB DDR3 based game system. And I'm not a Windoze fanboy. Microsoft has generated some of the sloppiest software known to man. :)