Clio09, Charles Hansen had advised against inserting a Bryston 10B active high-pass filter between the KX-5/20 and VX-5/20. Nevertheless. I tired it, and found that it indeed colored the sound, some of the Ayre sense of naturalness was missing. According to the tech at Ayre, Gary IIRC, that should not be a problem with the passive balanced Marchand filter, nor was it when I tried it previously. I'll reinsert the high-pass filter.
Low-pass + high-pass?
I've been using a pair of KEF Ref 1s 4th order low-passed at 80 Hz to subs. I have a passive Marchand 4th order high-pass 80 Hz filter that I could use between the Ayre 5/20 series preamp and amp -- Ayre tech says the balanced passive filter will do no harm, but discourage inserting an active filter. My question is whether I should high-pass or let the Ref 1s run full range?