1. Home
  2. amps-preamps
  3. 197667-1404

Ayrelink help (QX-5 ^20, KX-5 ^20, VX-5 ^20)

I've owned my Ayre QX-5 20 DAC 20, KX-5 20 Premap, and VX-5 20 Power Amp for a while and never quite understood Ayrelink. Brilliant sound! Absolutely love these units plus my Vandersteend 5As.

At present, I have the KX-5 in the middle with Ayrelink in and out.  

I think I never understood it before, since I thought I was supposed to be able to control everything through the KX-5. Am I correct that it's always downstream, and if I want to use that DAC, I need to start it, not the premap? Ok, then, but when I start the DAC, both amp and preamp turn on, then the KX-5 turns on for a second, but the power button has the green light around it, and then... it turns off. The VX-5 stays on. 

Any ideas? 

intermediatic
tosnc
30 posts
 

You may want to call Ayre.  They are very responsive.  I called a couple of weeks ago and left a message with a question about how the remote worked on the KX5-twenty and they got back to me in the same day.

In the meantime, some things to check.

1. make sure the cables for the Ayrelink are two line phone cables.

2. make sure there is only one cable in the amp and one in the QX5 and two in the KX5.  It should not matter what port on the KX5 you plug them into as long as one goes to the QX5 and one goes to the VX5

3. Set the KX5 to an input other than the QX5 and turn everything off.  Then turn on the QX5 with the remote.  This should cause everything to come on and the input for the QX5 to be selected.  If it does not, you may have an issue with the AyreLink settings.  There is a section in the KX5 manual regarding this.

Also, at times my KX5 will turn off when it is switching inputs.  I am not sure why so try repeating step 3 starting with the QX5 input already selected and see if it makes a difference.

One final thing is that Ayre does some things with long presses of the power button but I only use the AyreLink between a KX5 and MXRs so I am not sure if you need to do anything special with the QX5.

Best of luck.

More to discover