Ayre AX-7e amp
he Ayre AX-7e is the third integrated amplifier that has graced my music room of late. Although I didn’t write about the others for HIFICRITIC, all three have demonstrated to me graphically how the genre has changed over the last few years. When I was a lad, you bought an integrated to see you through until your savings would fund a ‘proper’ pre/power combination, a real amplifier. The performance of today’s integrated designs, however, seems to have advanced such that many can easily surpass the capabilities of entry-level and mid-range pre/powers. The prices also seem to have risen significantly, such that it is perhaps little wonder that these single-case designs can compete with, and sometimes beat, multi-box set-ups.
The Naim SUPERNAIT is one such device and an all-in-one-box with which I reckon I could live quite contentedly if I had to. The Ayon Spirit is another interesting design. It’s a valve confection that is perhaps not the copiously equipped all-rounder that the Naim is but it remains an attractive proposition to those who enjoy the undeniably romantic qualities of a Single Ended Triode driving a suitably enthusiastic loudspeaker. The Ayre is the third member of this trio and, like the other two, it brings its own approach and idiosyncrasies to the party.
The first of these is its appearance. The AX-7e looks at first more like a CD player than an amplifier. The CD drawer shaped panel above the display is, in fact, the volume control rocker. I cannot decide whether this is an inspired piece of industrial design or quite the opposite. Whichever it is, it’s original or, if not original, distinctive.
I’m not the least ambivalent about the loudspeaker terminals on the rear panel, which I feel come from the decidedly dopey school of design. The OEM version of the Cardas Patented Binding Post used here demands connectors other than 4mm banana plugs, and every speaker cable in my house is fitted with soldered banana plugs. According to Cardas’ web site, these connectors can easily replace most stock binding posts, which means that it should be a simple task to reverse the procedure and replace them with a standard post should you so wish. I certainly would because I’m exceedingly wary of any speaker connection that involves bare wires: In my experience bare wires oxidise, compress and come loose, and then they cause short circuits. And the spade connector, the suggested alternative means of connection, should stay under car bonnets where it belongs. Be aware, though, that the loudspeaker outputs on the AX-7e are balanced, so none of the connections should be allowed to touch an earth unless you’d welcome a repair bill for the amplifier.
Apart from those terminals I found little to complain about with the build of the AX-7e. It’s a purposeful enough beast, being finished in brushed aluminium with a heavy, thick fascia and a robust rear panel. The overall weight of the unit, while not back-breaking, is sufficiently substantial at 11.5 kg to let you know that this is a serious proposition and not some bottom-of-the-food-chain cheapie. The fact that it is supported on three feet is also encouraging: if the designer had not listened to it and decided that three sounded better than four, why is it not the more common quadruped? And if the designer was listening to the effects that feet have upon a component, then that definitely elevates him in the food chain.
The AX-7eprovides two pairs of balanced inputs, through XLR connectors, and two pairs of unbalanced connections, through RCA phonos. There is also an unbalanced tape output. Ayre suggests that the balanced inputs are superior sounding to the unbalanced but, currently being without any balanced sources, I was unable to check this. I connected my Naim CDS CD player to an unbalanced input through a £900 Chord Indigo interconnect by way of a sort of admittedly half-hearted apology. Mind you, how many folks do you know who actually use balanced output sources? I used the same company’s appropriately expensive Signature cable to hook up, primarily, a pair of Neat Momentum 4i loudspeakers.
At the amplifier’s core there is, as is common nowadays, a microprocessor. Following best practice, this, along with the master clock and the rest of the digital circuitry, spends its life asleep in order to keep noise away from the audio circuits and only awakens when it receives a command from the front panel or remote handset. This processor controls the 66-step volume control, which according to Ayre “yields superlative sonic performance… with crystal-clear transparency.” The control uses FETs and metal-film resistors providing 1dB steps to allow fine adjustment of playback volume. When first switched on the volume is set to “11”, which should be quiet enough even with very efficient loudspeakers, but thereafter the current setting is stored in memory and redeployed when switching inputs or bringing the amplifier back from Standby.
And now to the one aspect of the design that I really cannot get my head around: the input naming convention. Well, naming is hardly the correct term: input iconography is perhaps more accurate. For some reason best known to itself, Ayre calls the inputs Star, Planet, Comet, and Moon. That struck me as tree-hugging, trippy, New Age nonsense. Every time I caught sight of the buttons I heard “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius…”in my head. They might find that amusing in Colorado, from where the Ayre hails, but here in down-to-earth, rural Hampshire it struck me as being particularly hippyish and daft. All it needs is a subwoofer output called Uranus and you’d have the full comedic set.
Finally, I should note that the amplifier provides a Processor Pass-Through mode in which it can integrate with a surround sound processor and act as a simple unity-gain drive for the front two channels with the processor controlling the volume. Not bothered? I didn’t think you would be. On audition the Ayre AX-7e appeared to revel in guitar music. That was clear from the first couple of discs I played, Duke Robillard’s After Hours Swing Session and Rage Against The Machine’s eponymous album. In both instances, in spite of the violently contrasting playing styles of Duke Robillard and Rage’s Tom Morello, the AX-7e reached into the recordings and plucked out any available snatch of timbre and note shape, something that delighted the scholarly guitarist in me. Impressively, it delivered this insight without unduly hampering the music’s rhythmic flow and coherence: “scrupulous and transparent yet reasonably well paced” say my notes.
The amplifier did a fair job of portraying Robillard’s band’s temporal ‘bounce’, the rhythmic light-footedness with which the players tripped from phrase to phrase and counterpointed each other’s lines. I began to think that this might be a result of the amplifier’s seeming lightweight tonal balance and its touch of apparent forwardness in the midrange but then the baritone sax issued a delightfully realistic, rasping, low bark and the acoustic bass player dug in, and it became clear that the Ayre simply wasn’t exaggerating the low end of the frequency spectrum when there was no genuine bass present.
The timbre the AX-7e realised on the RATM album was little short of amazing. The bass, drums and guitar on this garage recording are so basically recorded that their tonal qualities shine through like beacons. The bass, in particular, has a fruity richness that it makes quite normal people start describing things in terms that wouldn’t embarrass a wine ponce. You could almost see how Tom Morello was wrenching those DJ–style phrases out of his guitar. However, I did write in my notes that the sound somehow seemed less visceral than it was on some other amplifiers when cranked to the same listening level. But then I noticed how low I had the volume setting: the Ayre’s dynamics seemed almost to be compensating for the lack of base-line SPL and tricking me into thinking that I was listening at near my usual levels.
And therein lies what I think is a crucial aspect of this amplifier: it delivers its most convincing performances when you find the ‘sweet’ volume level for the particular disc you’re playing. Listen at a level below that point and the music loses vitality, believability and, for reasons I cannot explain, musicality. The notes and spaces all seem to be in exactly the right position, and the rhythm taps out pretty closely, but somehow the music loses its expressive ability and sounds rather prosaic and mechanical.
That doesn’t mean that the AX-7e is especially wanting because it did something that few other amplifiers have achieved: it made me listen to nearly a whole CD of finger-in-the-ear style folk music. This particular album by Nic Jones, which is devoid of any instruments that can set a rhythm conventionally, also timed rather well and impressed me with its sonic transparency: every element in the mix, every instrument and voice was laid bare.
Other music with an implied rather than a clearly stated rhythm also fared well: the title track from Robert Ward’s Fear No Evil CD moved along at the appropriate tempo but what was most notable about the Ayre’s portrayal was the tone, timbre and distinctive note-envelope of his Stratocaster and vibrato-laden Magnatone amplifier combination. The sound had credible leading edge attack but was as rich as if the guitar were swimming in honey. (Sorry, I slipped into wine ponce mode again.)
Aimee Mann’s CD Whatever is a favourite choice because it quickly helps me decide whether an amplifier can communicate the innate beauty and expression in her voice: all too many render it without adequate drama and feeling. The AX-7e best came to terms with it once I’d set the optimum playback level, which, unfortunately, seemed to emphasise the occasional sibilant and also portrayed her as though she and the band were not entirely in harmony – not unlike the situation where Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney recorded the single Ebony and Ivory without ever venturing into the same studio simultaneously. Here Mann’s drummer and bass player sounded ever so slightly off: they were on a beat but not precisely the same one as the singer.
Ultimately, the performance of the Ayre AX-7e, which often seemed contradictory, appeared to be trying to encourage me to change the way I listen to music. It seemed to dwell on appealing to the intellectual side of my brain rather than the emotional half. This rather dulled the enjoyment of most of the audition period. I listen to music primarily for the emotion and drama it delivers, not because I want an education.
That is why I would say that this is one amplifier that you definitely need to audition using your own choice of albums rather than your dealer’s and at a range of volume settings that suits you. I believe its performance will polarise opinion. If you are a pace, rhythm and timing fan who gets excited and emotional about music rather than hi-fi, then you probably won’t appreciate what the AX-7e does. If, on the other hand, you are turned on by transparency, openness, brilliant detail, unforced clarity, and the sheer beauty of sound, which I regard more as cosmetic considerations, then it might just push all the right buttons for you.
Of course, as I’ve not been wholly complementary about the Ayre, I suspect I’ll attract criticism for not using its balanced inputs. To those critics I will simply ask, what about the vast majority of people on the planet who also use unbalanced inputs? This is, after all, a review for the majority rather than a tiny minority. And if the AX-7e changes character so dramatically when one uses a balanced input should that negate my findings? If unbalanced inputs are so detrimental to sound quality why does Ayre even bother fitting them? As I see it, any amplifier should stand or fall on its ability to amplify the signal from a regular, bog-standard, line-level input of appropriate quality: the Ayre does but the measure of its success will rest solely on whether you appreciate the way it goes about its business.
