Ayre DX-5 bluray player - Page 32

Although I don't own a DX-5; at least yet, I found that break-in was necessary with the new C-5xeMP that I purchased a few years ago before the release of either the QB-9 or the DX-5. I would imagine that the C-5 has the about the same break-in requirements as either the QB-9 or DX-5? Perhaps Charles can chime in here about this even though the C-5 does not have USB or HDMI inputs.

At first listen, my new C-5 didn't seem to sound nearly as good as I remember that the dealer demo unit did which I brought home for audition in my system. After I bought my C-5, my Ayre dealer warned me about this, but I didn't take them too seriously. At about 60 hours my new unit started opening up and sounded more like I remember the demo unit did after I did a 24/7 repeat play overnight and then listening a few hours each day.

To make sure that I wasn't imagining the improvment, I listened to the same disks that I previously played before the 60 hour mark. The disks that I used were ones that I've owned for years and was very familiar with their sound. With these disks, the edginess and the slightly brittle upper-midrange that I heard previously on my new C-5 were all but gone with the sound much like what I remembered hearing with the well broken-in demo unit. The midrange also seemed more fleshed out and developed with improved soundstage depth. In my system I noticed further improvement at about the 100 and 200 hours but not as dramatic at that first 60 hours.

That is pretty much the way things usually happen, although sometimes the unit actually can sound pretty good (if a bit "tight") for the very first few hours. Then it gets quite a bit worse sounding before it gets better. The improvements do taper off, but I always quote a longer total time just to be on the safe side.

Unbelievable!

We have always played the DX-5 from both the disc and USB sources and therefore haven't been able to tell exactly where the actual break-in was occurring. But you have done a very, very good experiment, by first fully breaking in the unit with the disc input and then switching to the USB input.

I can think of absolutely no reason why there should be any break-in occurring there, and mentioned it only to be safe. I am rather surprised (but not too, as I have heard stranger things before!) to find out that the digital circuitry also breaks in. Thank you very much for your report!

Some additional experiences: I recently bought some Blu Ray Audio Discs from NAXOS (NBD 0008, 0010, 0011, 0012, 0014). These discs contain DTS HD-Master Audio multichannel as well as PCM 24/96 PCM stereo tracks, which can be addressed by the red and the green button of the remote control.

My god, these discs really show the potential of the DX-5! John Corigliano's Circus Maximus (NBD 0008) comes with an unbelievable dynamic range, a highy transparent and deep soundstage. That's among the best digital performances I've ever heard.
And here's the dark side of the force: using its analog XLR outputs, the DX-5 sometimes plays back these discs in MONO! A strange glitch and I was yet unable to define the precise conditions under which it appears. If it occurs you have to start up the discs again, sometimes more than once, to get stereo sound.

Anybody shared this phenomenon ?

Hello IngoT,

Sorry about the problem you have experienced. It is due to a bug in the firmware. We added a special feature for our Japanese customers, They record programs from their HD television system on to a hard drive, then transfer them to BD for playback on the DX-5.

Some of these programs are bi-lingual, with Japanese in one channel and English in the other channel. We added a feature so that one source channel could be played through both output channels, selectable by codes on the remote control.

There is a bug such that the communication timing between the IR receiver and the audio PCB sometimes gets confused and it becomes mono accidentally. It is a random effect and difficult to reproduce. The German distributor should have the special programming machine required for updating the firmware. I will make sure that they have the latest firmware update software.

I am sorry, but you will have to return the machine to Sun Audio for the firmware update. It requires the special programming machine and cannot be performed by the customer. Please accept my apologies for the problem. I am glad that it is sounding so good when it is not stuck in mono!

Sorry, I missed that exchange earlier. (Grounding discussion at the bottom of page 30.)

I'm not really sure what to think about that. Obviously the potential on the "ground" of your cable/satellite system is different from the "ground" of the audio system (which is presumably the same as the "ground" of your AC mains wiring).

Tying the two together with a heavy conductor will equalize the potential and reduce the hum to insignificant levels. But by Ohm's law, we also know that there must be a current flowing in that conductor. I doubt that there is enough to cause a problem (eg, overheating of the wire). But what happens if lightning strikes nearby?

I don't know enough about this topic to give a good answer. I know that the grounding systems vary from country to country:

http://www.theiet.org/publishing/wir...s.cfm?type=pdf

I have no idea how cable and/or satellite service providers ground their incoming lines. I know that electricians (and the US electrical code) warn vigorously about the dangers of having two separate ground rods for different parts of the house. I think it has something to do with the path that the current may take during a lightning strike.

While the bonding together of the two systems may work very well, I would be more inclined to try to isolate them. The Jensen transformer I linked to before sells for $60. I believe that it is simply two capacitors inside the tube -- one for the signal and one for the ground. They even give the value of the capacitors as 2000 pF, so it would be not very difficult to build your own such device.

Again, I'm not an expert in the safety aspects of grounding your house, nor in the electrical codes of each country, but as a general rule I have found that isolation produces better performance results (picture quality and sound quality) than does grounding. Just an opinion, there may be better informed ones out there.

Thanks Charles, apologies accepted ...

I will contact Philip Krauspenhaar from SUN AUDIO (they are very friendly and helpful) to discuss the upgrade. Good to hear that this problem can be solved.

Regarding grounding:

I use a little peace of antenna cable to equalize the ground potentials, it remains totally cold and in case of lightning I can simply unplug it (as I do with all other equipment then).

We are working to make sure that Sun has the latest firmware. If they don't yet, they will by the end of the week. Phillipp is one of the most technically knowledgeable people I have met. I have sent him schematics of our products so that he can explain the circuitry to reviewers. He will ask questions that are more insightful than I would expect from a professional amplifier designer!

I'm glad that the people on this forum were able to solve the hum problem that has plagued your system for so long! Once we fix the mono bug (it usually happens rarely), then you should be in good shape. At least for a while.

There is a new beta firmware release at the Oppo website. Once the get feedback and fix the bugs, it will become an official release and they will make a version for us as well.

I spoke to Mr. Krauspenhaar already, he was aware of the issue and it can be fixed immediately at Sun Audio. Great. I will send them the DX-5 as soon as I can find the time (currently extremely busy...)

As a customer, I find it very important to be able talking to competent people at the distributors, a few years ago I talked to Phillipp regarding the Levinsons (also imported by Sun Audio) and so I was happy later to realize that Ayre was now with Sun too.

Good to hear that Oppo still supports the BDP-83 /DX-5 although the 83 is discontinued. So I can easily wait until the new Ayre version is finished.

Just to be clear, there are actually four sets of firmware inside the DX-5!

One is the main firmware that is supplied to us by Oppo and can be easily installed by the end user. The other three sets are for the Xilinx FPGAs. There is one on the front panel (control) PCB, one on the audio PCB, and one on the audio-only HDMI PCB.

The last three Xilinx firmwares can only be upgraded with special tools. Unfortunately they are too expensive to supply to every single dealer (plus train them!), so we can only supply them to each distributor in each country.

The problem with switching to mono is our fault and due to a bug in the Xilinx firmware. The problems with playing certain BDs or pops between tracks on SACDs is due to the firmware from Oppo. It is hard to predict, but it sounds like we will have a new version in another month or so. It is a good sign that they have released a new beta version.

Charles, is the latest version of the four sets of firmware as follows?

Oppo 50-0424
Logic revision D
Audio revision C
HDMI revision Cx

That's indeed what Philipp Krauspenhaar had told me already. I will send the DX-5 to SUN within the next 3-4 weeks.

Thanks again for your support!

Best,

Ingo

Hey Charles! Had the chance to listen to the DX-5 again last night at the music matters event at Definitive. The whole front end was Ayre and the results were sensational. Absolutely gorgeous sound!! I was hoping to win the powerball recently so I could do some upgrades but it fell through, hopefully next time though . Congrats on an absolutely incredible product!

Also, my friend and I LOVED the volume control on your preamp they had on display. The way it changes like it is on a dial was a great touch and brought a lot of smiles on with the crowd.

The 50-0424 is the most recent official release. We also have a beta release with a few known small bugs but that cures some other larger problems, especially allowing the proper play of some recent Blu-ray titles. There was a link to the beta firmware (53-1102) a few pages ago in the thread, I think around November or so. I think most people might be better off with the beta firmware, but we are still shipping units with the production firmware.

The other three PCBs have each incremented one letter. This was to fix the communication bug between the boards that would very rarely put the player into mono mode by mistake. We've only had two or three instances of it happening. You can always force the output to the correct number of channels with the remote handset:

Setup-0-0-2-0 = 2.0 channels
Setup-0-0-5-1 = 5.1 channels
Setup-0-0-7-1 = 7.1 channels

Please note that most of this will only affect the HDMI Audio (Only) Output. The Analog Audio Outputs can only be switched between mono mode (for replay of two-language Japanese TV broadcasts -- I know it's a bit odd, but that's what they want) and normal mode, where stereo is stereo and multi-channel is automatically downmixed.

Thank you for correcting my misspelling of Philipp's name. I kept putting two "L"s in it by mistake. Sometimes I think he knows more about our products than I do...

Thank you very much for the kind words. It sounds like they didn't have any video playing that night. We just got our JVC DILA installed last week. I haven't seen it yet but am looking forward to it. It is the one that Shane Buettner recommended -- but in the next breath said that we were crazy not to wait for 3D.

I told him I wasn't crazy. I know I'm not crazy. If I were crazy, they wouldn't let me be King.


I have to give credit where it is due. We stole that idea from Squeezebox. I don't know if they still do it because they are migrating to touchscreens and such. But the earlier ones would only display a line or two. It is much easier to navigate if you can "see" which way you are going, and how quickly you are moving. It's a bit of coding, but not too bad.

You only see it during the initial configuration when you are naming the inputs and such, but then the menu options scroll sideways, which also looks pretty cool. But hey, for that much money it had better look cool!

Good luck on that lottery...

Yes, make sure that you have the latest Xilinx FPGA firmware for all three PCBs. There is a communication link whereby they talk to each other and all know what they are supposed to do. The previous firmware had a timing issue whereby the communication would work almost all of the time, but not 100%. This could lead to unpredictable errors, and the issue you describe could be caused by that. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I have had my DX-5 for about a month. Mostly I have been very happy with it. However, on 2 different BD's I received the following error message on my monitor:

"Mismatch between disc and player region codes. See disc packaging for details"

These were BD's from Netflix, disc 1 and 2 of season 2 of the TV series "Breaking Bad". I live in the U.S and there was no "disc packaging" to see. The problem was not fixed by rebooting nor by playing another DVD and BD before retrying the problem BD. Both BD's played normally on my backup player.

I also had an odd experience with a DVD-A. It registered in the display as a DVD-A, but played with a very distorted sound. Only when I played a regular CD and then retried the DVD-A did it play normally.

Are these related problems? Do I have some kind of bug? Do I need to reload firmware? Any other ideas or suggestions?

Thanks,
Rick

Thanks again Charles for your help. Your suggestion did the trick and the DVD-A anomaly hasn't recurred. I'll call Michael at Ayre if I have any future problems.
Regards,
Rick

For those of you capable to read german language, here is a new review of the DX-5:

http://www.hifistatement.net/de/test...diaplayer-dx-5

Charles,

When I installed my DX-5, I was surprised that there is no RS-232 connector. Hopefully, the AyreLink connector is the access to the Oppo RS-232 control. Please confirm and provide the pinout. Thanks.

RS-232 control is both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing because it allows the control of many separate components to be controlled by one central computer. So for example, you can have a button (on a physical button, a touchscreen, or a remote handset) labeled "Movies" that will drop the motorized screen, turn on the projector and all of the audio components needed for movie playback, and then after a programmable delay, dim the room lights. Talk about WAF!

A curse because such capabilities require expensive and specialized equipment, as well as specialized and expensive programming.

But perhaps even worse is that they degrade the performance of your system, in two separate ways:

a) The controlling computer generates a lot of electrical noise (RFI) that is injected into your entire system, both via the RS-232 connection itself and also through the AC mains wiring of your house.

b) By adding a second grounded connection between components, by definition a ground loop has been created.

To avoid these problems, Ayre has created an optically-isolated communication system to link our newer components, starting with the MX-R in 2006. Every component since then has included it. Its normal function is just to allow Ayre components a way to communicate so that the entire system acts as one big system.

For example if you turn on an AyreLink source, then all of the "downstream" components will also turn on and the preamplifier will change inputs to select the component that turned the system on. Components can be turned off individually with a short button press, or if the button is held for a few seconds, the entire system is turned off.

Some of the AyreLink components will also respond to a "trigger" input if a special adapter cable is used. But the DX-5 is the first AyreLink component that will respond to RS-232 commands. In this case, a special adapter box is required to convert the voltage levels and opto-isolate the computer from the rest of the system. The box is available from any Ayre dealer. I can't remember the price, but I think it is $300 or $400 in the US and will be 20% to 50% more overseas, depending on the import duty, VAT, and other factors.

If you are connecting a Crestron or other controller to the DX-5, it can act as a "gateway" and pass commands from the controller to the other AyreLink components in your system. More information, including a link to the RS-232 commands document can be found at the DX-5 FAQ page:

http://www.ayre.com/dx5_faq.htm#is-t...s232-interface

For whatever reason, we have only sold a handful of these adapter boxes so it will likely be the first one your dealer has sold. If they need more information than is provided in the RS-232 commands document, have their programmer contact the factory directly for additional support.

Charles,

Thanks for the detailed information. I have a Crestron system and a very nice two way Oppo module that I have been using with my Oppo BDP-83 player. Among many other fuctions, I have continuous Crestron display of time remaining in a movie. Will this module work without modification if I install your adapter box?

In theory, yes. However we have not tested this, as we do not have a Crestron of our own. If you run into any problems, contact the factory and we'll help you get things sorted out.

There are two parts to the USB DAC. The first part is the USB receiver and the second part is the actual DAC, including the digital filter, the DAC chip, the analog circuitry and the power supplies. These are separated by a bank of opto-isolators.

When the QB-9 was introduced there was essentially no content past 96 kHz, plus none of the operating systems would go past 96 kHz, so we used a USB receiver that only went to 96 kHz. There still is next to zero content past 96 kHz but the operating systems are starting to support data rates above 96 kHz, so we worked hard to have a high-speed solution available for the DX-5.

All DX-5's have USB receivers that will go to 192 kHz (actually 384/32 with a firmware update if it ever matters -- which it won't). Newer QB-9's have this same input receiver board and older ones can be updated for a nominal fee. So there is absolutely no difference between the two products as far as the USB part goes.

Regarding the analog part, it was tempting to just put a QB-9 board into the DX-5 as it performs at such a high level. But in the end we decided that someone paying that much money deserved a bit more sound quality. So the DX-5 has doubly regulated power supplies for the analog circuitry and also uses ultra-rare (well, we bought a half-million so we have the world market cornered) JFETs after the DAC chip. It is also a more expensive DAC chip with greater current output and combined with the JFETs we get another 8 or 10 dB of S/N ratio.

Audibly, the DX-5 is very similar to the QB-9. They are both very musical, very enjoyable, with excellent coherence and timing. However, the DX-5 is slightly more refined sounding with a tad more resolution (as it should be for nearly 4x the price).