Audio Magic, who has been recently appointed as the new Australian distributor for Ayre Acoustics products, has announced the local availability of the company’s ‘Twenty’ upgrade for existing QB-9 DAC owners.
In line with Ayre Acoustics ideology of long-term customer satisfaction and product longevity, the latest ‘Twenty’ circuit upgrades make for substantial improvements to the very popular QB-9, now to be known in its new livery as the QB-9 Twenty.
The list of updates and circuit advancements is extensive and includes Ayre Acoustics’ proprietary ‘Diamond’ output circuit which is said to improve “musicality and bass response” and a new JFET differential stage which lowers the noise floor. Further improvements feature a redesigned AyreLock power supply regulation circuit, a new AC noise filtering scheme said to improve resolution, custom-designed ‘Ayre Asynchronous’ USB technology which further reduces electrical noise and ties in with proprietary re-clocking to eliminate USB domain jitter.
A new ESS DAC chip improves signal-to-noise ratio and is said to provide performance benefits while extending PCM payback to 384 kHz. Native DSD is catered for at up to DSD256. Not so common these days is the allowance for HDCD decoding.
Audio Magic’s Ratko Dimkovski told SoundStage! Australia, “Ayre keeps the promises for a lifetime of enjoyment and always tries to surprise customers with handy news. One of the most successful Ayre products, QB-9 now qualified for update. Existing QB-9 owners could apply for the "Twenty" modernisation and get a fresh excitement of discovering their preferred audio playlist all over again.”
The new upgraded QB-9 Twenty is available in August 2019 via Audio Magic’s dealer network around Australia.
Ayre Acoustics QB-9 Twenty DAC
Price: AU$2350
Australian Distributor: Audio Magic
+61 3 9489 51 22
www.audiomagic.com.au