EOI: Ayre QB-9 Twenty USB DAC

Further Information: 

Considering selling my Ayre QB-9 USB DAC with the Twenty upgrade. This is a really fantastic DAC that’s easy to recommend. Natural, dynamic and detailed sound that for me is as good as anything anywhere near this price point. It’s exclusively USB input, which won’t suit everyone but if you have a streamer that can output USB then this DAC is a really excellent option.

I bought the QB-9 from the US and had Ayre convert it to 240v while they did the Twenty upgrade. All up the unit plus upgrade and shipping/taxes cost me north of $5k so this is a pretty decent discount. 

From Ayre, the Twenty upgrade offers the following improvements:

• Their Diamond output circuit improves musicality and bass response.
• A new JFET differential stage lowers the noise floor.
• AyreLock power supply regulation for better rendering of fine musical detail.
• New AC noise filtering for improved resolution.
• Custom Ayre Asynchronous USB technology further reducing electrical noise in the system.
• New ESS DAC chip for improved signal to noise ratio and spatial detail.
• Six layer board design for optimal circuit isolation.
• Proprietary reclocking to eliminate USB domain jitter.
• PCM play back up to 384 kHz
• Native DSD capability up to DSD256 (4x)
• HDCD decoding

Just EOI at this point. My streamer has died so I’m looking at maybe switching to a streamer/DAC combo. I also find myself listening to more vinyl these days. I have the original packaging so able to send within NZ or Australia. Any questions just PM me. Cheers.