The new Ayon player makes sound focused and simultaneously enlarges it. Let me add that it also saturates it by transferring more information. Both of the players are spectacular in this respect, but the MkII does it better. Audiophile jargon includes the term „unveil”, also referred to as “removing the blanket” – i.e. after we start using a better audio product, sound becomes clearer. And perhaps it is not about such a change in this case, as it would be more appropriate to talk about removing a layer of muslin here, but this is the impression we get after replacing the MkI with Mk II.

Rather than enhancing detail, the new player reveals more. Its sound is more dense and clearer at the same time, and sound sources are clearer and stronger, but they have more “air” around them, and their micro-acoustics is less ambiguous. This leads us directly to Gerhard’s point of reference, i.e. the sound of an analog master tape. Not the sound of other digital players, not even his beloved LP, but tape.

Similarly as in the case of this medium, the sound of the MkII makes it impossible to delineate 3D images clearly and to precisely define the spot where the musicians are standing. It is because they are combined with reverberation, added at the studio or natural, which prevents us from instantly locating the sound source in real life as well. It was clearly audible with purist recordings made using two microphones onto a Nagra tape recorder, placed on 2xHD company samplers entitled Audiophile Analog Collection Vol. 1 + Vol. 2. One could clearly observe what I am talking about with them, i.e. the fact that the tested player moves the foreground further away and shows clearer phantom images that are larger and more saturated at the same time, as well as darker, which is totally surprising.

The first version of the device was unique in this respect, as it was so similar to what we get with tape. It is not “the same sound”, but it is “of the same kind” – in the end, these are two different formats and recording methods. However, each version of the CD-35 player is closer to the sound of an analog tape recorder than to an LP and to a much larger extent than I have heard with any other digital disc player, not to mention files. And the new version is even closer, also through the darkness it introduces.

I know that not everyone likes the Ayon Audio player that I use. It is good, as audio is the art of selection and compromise. Anyway, the main arguments that I have heard against it, held by its opponents, were that it includes “too little detail” and is “too dark”. And this is true, as it is not a device that would emphasize details and it is also one that sounds dark. However, from my point of view, it is an excellent choice which yields fantastic results. And when I heard how the MkII played the discs produced by René Laflamme, what recordings by the Three Blind Mice record label, e.g. Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio Midnight Sugar from the gold HDCD, sounded like and, finally, what the sound of John Scofield’s album entitled Swallow Tales was, I was surprised by the fact that one can go even further in this direction, achieving yet more.