Ayre V-5xe best tube pre-amp to match with?

I am taking delivery of the Ayre C5XE, V5SE and K5SE next week and I'm curious what mods you were able to make to the preamp to provide this improvement. Would you please share this info? Thanks.

The following mods were done to V-5xe and K-5xe:

adding of damping material (case work); set of three Stillpoint Universal Resonance Dampers underneath each unit; one Shakti Stone on top of the V-5xe; replaced the cheap fuses with high-quality gold-silver ceramique fuses; replaced power inlet with a high-quality cryo treated gold-silver one; use of Walker E-SST on all contacts (fuse contacts as well); replacement of Diodes, etc. with highest quality parts; taping of the cooling device of the V-5xe (tip from Chrles Hansen) - total amount for the K-5xe US $ 900,00.

Hi Frankpiet,

>> taping of the cooling device of the V-5xe (tip from
>> Chrles Hansen)

I didn't quite understand this part. Can you please elaborate? Thanks!

Charles gave me the tip to reduce internal vibration of the V-5xe cooling device to tape it with a clear cellofane.

Good to hear that you found a satisfactory way to upgrade your sound. If you like a particular manufacturer's sound, it makes sense to stay within the family. The approach of trying to compensate for one perceived weakness by finding a component with the "opposite" characteristic usually does not work, at least not predictaby. I like your approach of upgrading the existing components which you happen to like.

By the way, although I am a tube person, I do like the sound of Ayre gear even though they don't sound remotely like the tube gear I have.