Ayon Audio Forum- all questions and suggestion

Hi Audiolabyrinth,

In order to provide my own personal expression more correctly and to avoid prejudicious judgements, I am adjusting my system by experimenting different cables and damping tweaks now. I have about 20 CDs which are considered my testing tunes. To go through all of them I need this whole weekend for a fair conclusion. Please be patience with me.

In terms of tube based CD players, I can sense your sufferings as I had 2 tube based CD players in 15 years. I am lucky enough for not having premature tubes issues.

In brief, if soundstage is your major concern then Ayon CD5s can't show its forte in that category.

Details will be provided later.

They should have provided the dr 6h30 tubes if they are the best. I'm hoping I can tube roll into a bigger soundstage and Better. I will report back after I hear both sets of tubes in my player. I will be trying the eh 6h30 pi gold pins and the 6h30 dr reflectors

@ Yul1375, Hi, thankyou, you are a gentleman, I look forward to your findings and opinions, I am on my 3rd digital payer since april of 2012!,,,unless you bought a 5s used, you will need 500 hours of burn-in to come to conclusions if you bought a new unit, Happy listening.

@ calvinj, Hi, I agree with you 1,000%, As much as the ayon 2s and 5s cost, they should have the better tubes in the player!,, You may know or may not know, you will need 100 hours of burn-in on the tubes you roll into your player!, eany set!, eany tubes need atleast that many hours on any player, you may ask these gentleman If you are not sure of what I am saying is true, I will not be offended, Its always a better feeling to have more opinions, I look forward to your findings as well, please share your experience with us, thankyou calvinj, cheers.

Hi Audiolabyrinth,

My CD-5s is a demo one and fully broken-in so additional burn-in might not be necessary. Even fully broken-in gears I always let them run for whole night before I make any serious listening.

In terms of 6H30 tube, it is a very interesting story to me. My BAT VK D-5 is 6922 tube based and BAT was trying to promote the SE version of all their gears by replacing 6922 tubes with 6H30 tubes around Y2K. Some BAT owners considered 6H30 tube too analytic and refused to convert but new owners embraced 6H30 frantically and preferred its higher output. At that time I audited the SE version in my own system and got the same forward sounding impression as you have on Ayon CD2s.

Through all these years, I audited more 6H30 tube based gears by Audio Research and BAT mainly. To my surprise, designers collected more knowledge and experiences to "tame' this muscular tube in the past decade. However, I have to agree with you regarding the soundstage dissatisfaction of Ayon CD players, even CD5s. This early morning I experienced the insufficient soundstage as well so I changed the interconnect cable and let it run for another 6 hours. After the cable switching, the soundstage is wide and deep now, not the most impressive cases yet satisfactory.

Give me one more day, I'll update my comparison of Ayon CD5s and Esoteric K-03.

Happy Listening.

Otto