Ayre QB9 Twenty Upgrade

If you like the sound, and trust the ears of the folks at Ayre, the upgrade could be a good option for you.  In addition to better sound, benefits would likely include a full check-up of the DAC as well as a restart of the warranty.

I am a big proponent of upgrades of gear that I already like, assuming I trust the manufacturer and their ability to move the sonic needle - i.e., to make stuff sound better.  However, with digital stuff like DACs, the technology has changed so fast that upgrading to something newer could result in a bigger improvement.  Also, if you don't quite like the sound now, I would not count on an upgrade to totally turn things around since it will likely be a refinement of the sound you already have.

Consider the upgrade cost is probably equal to the amount you would get for selling the DAC used.   Therefore, another option would be to sell the Ayre DAC and add your upgrade money leaving you around $3K to spend on a new/used dac.  There are some pretty good sounding (lightly used, current model) DACs out there in the $3-5K range used. 

I’m in the queue for this upgrade. I have no doubt it will be worth it. I’m a long-time Ayre owner and previously had my AX-7 upgraded to AX-7e and my CX-7 upgraded to CX-7e MP. Both were notable and worthwhile sonically. I've been lusting after the QX-5 but this upgrade is within my budget!

Thanks Mitch2, I suppose it makes since then for me to get the upgrade given that I find nothing objectionable about the Ayre, not to mention times when it sounds very, very good.

beetlemania, I hope you post something about the upgrade when you get it broken in.

I would consider ayre, Lampizator and a used Aesthetix Pandora as very musical DAC w well executed filters and analog outputs... of course there are others. Ayre upgrades , customer support, long long term commitment to product are stellar. Which filter setting do you use now?

tomic601, I believe which ever is recommended by Ayre for general play. There is an A or B switch on the back and I believe it's on A. I do know that the upgrade guts the entire insides of the QB9 and that upgraded filters are part of that. Unfortunately, I know nothing about the DAC chip or filters, etc...

Filter settings are "Listen" and "Measure". Ayre recommends Listen for listening, Measure if you are a reviewer testing the unit on the bench (the Listen filter has better time-domain performance but rolls off the highs).

I'm pretty sure the filters are one of the few things *not* changed by this upgrade.https://www.ayre.com/2019/10/11/ayre-qb-9-twenty-update/

beetlemania, then Ayre was able to adapt the new circuit board and whatever else to the present filters which surprises me.

Ayre implements the filters in a Xilinx FPGA, which provides the necessary horsepower. In an e-mail, Hansen told me that, during the development of Ayre's digital products, "We have custom filters whereby we can load whatever coefficients we want into [the FPGA] . . . an external switch allows us to load different filter coefficients and hear the audible changes they make. This is a great test, as it allows for everything else to be held completely constant. I spent four solid months doing nothing but listen[ing] to the effects of various filters—corner frequency, stop-band response, minimum-phase vs linear-phase, apodizing, sharpness at the 'knee,' windowing functions, interpolation rates (eg, 2x vs 4x vs 8x vs 16x), dithering functions . . . every single factor I could think of.

beetlemania, that's interesting. Is this universal in the sense that recording engineers and others have the same ability?