One-man-band

Ayon CD-3sx Tube CD Player / DAC / Preamplifier

All-in-one. Do-it-all. This much hyphenated concept is often met with disdain in our field.

Not always, though. Integrated, full featured single boxes these days can really kick — see Devialet for evidence.

But most of the time, we accept trade-offs in return for extra features and easier setup. And if we’re the cranky audiophile type, trade-offs are for suckers.

Well here’s one device I found that actually does it all with as few trade-offs as I’ve ever witnessed, the Ayon CD-3sx. If you’re like me and consider CDs a reference in this streaming age, something like this can revolutionize your life. Because as great as CDs are, they are never going to be the only source nowadays.

I’m trying to think about what caused me to open the notepad here and start typing. The reason in my mind has to be the output stage, which Ayon clearly slaved over. Before you even get into features like the “direct amp” setting which sees a short signal path out of the machine, or the upsampling feature or the multiple filter options, I marvel in the fact that the analog section and the digital section so closely resemble each other sonically. That means this has as good an analog stage as its digital — actually, to my ears, slightly better — and that’s no small feat comparing to my test station DAC.

Not to toot my own horn too much, but I have my test system here at TMR pretty squarely dialed in by this point.

And what this dialed-in system tells me when fed by the wonderful all-in-one audiophile piece from Ayon is that this CD player is audiophile gold.

This is better than what I’ve got, I can easily tell. CDs with well-recorded spatial music expand incredibly from the Ayon. Images hold in place like they’re super glued.

The fact that before listening to the myriad of other inputs (including analog!!) the CD player section has me in its grasp is something to note. I’ve heard a good number of high end CD players and this is up there with my favorites.

As a DAC, it’s a stunning piece as well. I come back to the notion that, with a digital workhorse like this, if your analog output stage isn’t good enough, you ain’t got it goin’ on. The two eventually need to see eye to eye if you’re to have an exceptional component. With the quality of analog output from the Ayon, I’m convinced this is about the best all-in-one hifi device I’ve come across.

Future kudos to the lucky audiophile who snags this, and in the process is able to reduce to just a couple of boxes his previously manifold componentry (I might know a place where you can sell used audio equipment!).