Ayre C 5xe Universal vs. Cary 306 SACD

Kalan, I have had the C5xe for about 10 days now and I believe it is burned in pretty good. I have had it playing day and night for about 5 days and it sounding unbelieveably good. I am rediscovering my CD collection.
I have not played one disc that I haven't noticed some little nuance, back ground vocal or instrument that I had not heard before. The tonal presentation is hard to describe, it has such a "natural" sound. The space between the instruments has grown but filled with the added expansion of each sound. I am sure that doesn't describe it well but the bottom line is no regrets. I owned a Linn Ikemi which I felt was great player but this Ayre just pushed the memory of it to far reaches of my mind. I could not imagine many players that would sound better for less that 10K or more!

Congratulations, Theo, on your C-5xe. How does it look in black? Thanks for the great "sonic" description, too.

I may opt for Mattkimb96's suggestion of just upgrading my CX-7 and be done with it.

I have been side-tracked with some recent auditioning of the new GamuT DI-150 (integrated) and some Shunyata Altair interconnects. I hope to get back to my digital front end decisions soon.

I hope to get a good side-by-side demo of both the Cary 306 SACD and the Ayre 5-Cxe soon. Besides any ergonomic and user function capability, I really need to hear them both in the same system. My preference going in is for the Ayre because its baby brother (CX-7) does such a fantastic job of making the music "read" artistically, so to speak.

Kalan, I think it ios gorgeous in black. I don't understand why Ayre doen't have pic's anywhere. I luckily live 45 miles from Boulder and happened to call Ayre the day they were finishing a C5xe in black for shipment. They asked if I could be there by 3PM to seeit befoire they boxed and shipped it. Great people and it was love at first sight.

Hey, has anyone out there done anymore with these 2 players?
I auditioned the Ayre last night and was impressed, but no enough to lossen my wallet. I have owned a Cary 306/200 and thought it was one of the best out there. The new Cary 306 is suppose to be in another league. So I do not want to make a decision before hearing the Cary, but that will be a tall order...no local dealers. There sure are a lot of Carys for sale already and not very many Ayre of this ilk.
Mike

I actually own both players - the Ayre C5Xe and the Cary 306 SACD. I've had both of the players for over a month now. They are both unbelievably good!

Thus far the major difference appears to be that the Cary is more dynamic and possesses more "slam", while the Ayre is slightly more laid back and has (slightly) more inner detail. I actually prefer the Ayre for acoustic music, male and female vocalists, and chamber music, while the Cary really shines on massed instrumental, symphonies, sound tracks and music of that ilk.

Oh, how I wish I could keep both - but - ultimately I must make a decision between the two. I really love both of these incredible players - on SACD and on Redbook - both are wonderful - they just sound different.

Which is right? Which is the "best"? At this point, I'm really not sure. I have both units connected to my preamp and every time I switch between the two, I am convinced that "this one sounds better".

Since "decision time" is rapidly approaching, I guess I'll have more to report later. . . . . So . . . . . Later . . . . . .