Burson Playmate Basic with MCPS Technology

Introduction and Disclaimer

I have been provided this device free of charge in exchange for an honest review and a mention of the MCPS technology. I'd like to thank Burson and Carlos, the Burson representative on Head-Fi for this opportunity. I am also thanking them for their great patience as this took much longer than expected.

I will be reviewing the basic Playmate unit which is built around the SABRE32/ESS9038 DAC chip like its higher priced brethren and unlike them uses non-Burson and non-discrete NE5532 Opamps. I believe that aside from a remote included with higher priced models, the only difference between them are the (upgradeable ) Opamps.





Please consult Burson Playmate page and PDF manual for more complete technical specs and cleaner close up pics of the device.

Functionality, Accessories & Limitations

This a DAC with Class A headphone amp output via jack on the front and Preamp Line Out via RCA on the back. It accepts USB (on front and back) and optical (TOSLINK) input. It has no audio input other than a microphone input on the front and thus cannot be used as an amplifier only. It also has no digital output and thus cannot be used as a digital transport.

It can be used as a desktop unit or integrated in a PC by plugging it into a free optical drive bay. A number of accessories are included for both uses.

You get a standalone switching power supply unit and a sturdy USB cable for use as a desktop unit.

For PC integration, there is a PC backplate with two dual female RCA sockets, two nice single RCA cables and an USB cable plugable into a PC motherboard USB sockets. The unit has a molex socket on the back to get its power from the PC switching power supply unit via one of its molex plugs. No screws were included for securing the unit into the PC drive bay however.

You also get an Allen key to be able to open the device and what appears to be perhaps a small fuse.



For use with a Windows PC or laptop, driver installation is required and, although it is not mentioned anywhere, the Windows 7 XMOS Driver on the Burson download page is suitable for easy and straightforward installation on Windows XP too where it works flawlessly.

The volume control is digital with a very smooth endless scrolling wheel controlling it with excellent granularity and doubling as a mute button. I found this to be excellent as it lets you control the volume very precisely, it never goes too loud by just turning the wheel up a bit, there is a very nice amount of headroom here. It also won't suffer from channel unbalance and won't become noisy over time.

There is only a single 6.35 mm jack socket for Headphone Out, there is no dedicated socket for IEM. Using IEMs will require an adapter (which isn't supplied) and consequently will not let IEMs benefit of the lowest possible output impedance which might be an issue with BA/Multi BAs/Hybrid setups. Also, since balanced output is all the (quite unwarranted IMO) craze lately, I should mention the this device has no balanced output of any kind.

RCA Line Out on the back responds to volume control.

The control panel offers a number of settings and is very easy to use. By pushing a small button next to the volume wheel, the latter switches to control panel navigation and editing mode. You can select Input and Output (only one of each can operate simultaneously), Headphones Gain mode (Low or High), choose between 7 FIRFilters (I personally can't hear a difference between them), choose between 4 DPLL (this is related to clock jitter) settings for both PCM and DSD (Hi, Mid, Low and Off) with ouput being shut if off is selected and probably best left at the default Hi settings. Finally there is an Emphasis setting (called De-Emphasis in the manual) which is On by default and affects the tonal balance of the output by quite significantly rolling off treble as can be seen in the screenshots below, this is a very, very nice option to have IMO.





Max Current Power Supply (MCPS) Technology

Basically, as I understand it, this makes use of current provided by external switching power supply (the one supplied with the device or the PC PSU) and further processes this current to offset/eliminate issues switched current has but keep its efficiency advantage. Since I initially had some trouble understanding it I asked Carlos about it and got answered by Dennis, a Burson technician whose email I quote here near verbatim (just corrected some typos, grammar and punctuation hopefully without betraying meaning) as I found it very helpful and a good complement to what's written on Burson's MCPS page:

Linear power supply Vs. Switching power supply

In traditional audio design, we use dual rail linear power supply (e.g. +/-12V). Compare that to a typical +12V single rail switching power supply linear power supply can provide double with the voltage switch allow for much better audio performance. That is the main difference between a car audio system compare to a home base audio system. That is why if a 100W home amplifier sounds very good and powerful a 100W car amp will sound very weak and lack the driving power. So, car audio nowadays mostly move towards Class D design which will give them a much higher power rating and sacrifices the audio fidelity.

You may be wondering why is that in such case anyone wants to make audio gear with switching power supply? Well, from an engineering perspective switching power supply has one major advantage compared to a linear power supply that is very low impedance. Low impedance means low resistance to the current rush which means more current can come through to the circuit when it is needed. But there are 2 major challenges for switching power supply in an audio circuit: noise and voltage.

The MCPS power supply uses the standard +12V switching power supply and converts that into +/-15V DC during this conversion process it regenerates its power at 170khz which is more than 8 times higher than any human hearing. This conversion process provide noise-free high voltage high current power to the rest of the system. Due to the low impedance nature of the switching power supply, you will find that the playback dynamic is much greater with MCPS compare to the same wattage linear power supply.

Click to expand...

Testing

Most listening has been done with an old XP laptop using foobar200 and the XMOS ASIO driver. Some listening has been done via optical (TOSLINK) input using my Questyle QP1R DAP as a digital transport. I don't think I can tell them apart. Apart from lossless noise and silent files I only used 16bit, 44.1kHz, 320kbps CBR MP3s with MaxNoClip ReplayGain applied on them from both devices. Finally, I only used a variety of IEMs, mostly single dynamics, no headphones have been used. The device had 500+ hours before I started doing some real listening.



QP1R Optical > Playmate Basic > Flares Gold + Sony MDR-EX1000

Sound

First of all I am going to talk a bit about the noise floor. When everything is on but nothing is playing there is none I can hear/detect even pushing the High Gain volume to max. When playing a silent/empty wav file from the laptop I get some noise (which might well come from the laptop, not sure about that) but it is very low: for example, I use the Flares Pro IEM on High Gain at a volume, between 50 and 65 max depending on how loud the audio files are. When playing a silent file I can begin to hear a very faint noise at a volume of 70. This translates to all the other IEMs I tried to check out noise levels. It takes 5 to 10 clicks above the max volume I use them for playing audio for very faint noise to begin to show up when playing a silent/empty file. In all cases Emphasis filter was off which means no rolled off treble. I think this is very good.

Overall I feel this is a very clean sounding device with a warmish, thickish, deep and full, pleasing and immersive tonality this even with Emphasis filter off and akin to good vintage solid state amplifiers such as the Sansui AU series I have but just tighter, cleaner and deeper. Unfortunately my Sansuis are out of service at the moment so I could not compare them directly. I have however plugged the Playmate Line Out into my Teac A-H500i integrated power amplifier who is supposed to have a reference neutral sound and whose headphone out is deemed excellent and I found it felt indeed more neutral than the Playmate but also much less clean and of similar tightness. On older testing between the Teac and the AU Sansuis I had found the latter to be warmer, less tight and less clean.

One interesting thing is that while I knew the Sony MDR-EX1000 was very good I had never really understood its legendary TOTL status until I have listened it with the Playmate, not even with the Questyle QP1R which is (was?) my best/most technical device. Is it because the pairing with the Playmate is exceptionally good, the rolled off treble (Emphasis filter is on this time) compensating for the Sony's brightness/harshness leading to a more comfortable listening experience and ability to notice its strenghths more easily or is it because the Playmate sounds better than the Questyle DAP? Hard to say as I haven't done any direct comparisons but two things are sure here: 1) The EX1000 never struck me as so exceptionally good before and 2) The Emphasis filter is a really great feature which comes in extremely handy for pairing with brighter/harsher phones.

I have mostly done comparisons with other gear I have so far to describe sound and this last cheeky little bit will be no different. I find the bass tighter and better on my lowly Audiotrack Prodigy Cube Black Edition. Not that it is bad on the Playmate Basic, I feel it's just better on the Cube than on the Playmate Basic (better than on the Questyle QP1R too). The secret here, because there is one, is that the Cube has a Burson V5i opamp in it and that's what gave it this better bass . So yeah, while very good and I'd even say excellent sounding overall there is clearly room for improvement in at least one area I know but probably more than that with upgrading them lowly NE5532 Opamps to discrete ones.

Conclusion

Overall this has been a pleasure to use and listen to so far. Hopefully I have highlighted all the pros and cons of this device well enough to help someone make a decision, thanks for reading.

Playmate: https://www.bursonaudio.com/products/playmate/
MCPS: https://www.bursonaudio.com/about-us/max-current-power-supply/
PDF Manual: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B8z1Zjj8rIeOzJ8A5WPfU-aw9JgmH1i2/view?usp=drive_web

1) Introduction: A little while back I was contacted through PM by Carlos from Burson Audio who offered me a free sample of the v5i opamp in exchange for a review, an offer which I accepted. I would like to thank Carlos and Burson Audio for this opportunity.

2) Setup: I have attempted to ABX as much as possible the v5i against the LME49860 and for doing so I used two DAC/Amp devices using an LME49860: a) An Audiotrack Prodigy Cube Black Edition which uses the LME49860 natively and b) An xDuoo XD-05 whose default opamp had been replaced by an LME49860 a while back as I didn't like the default sound. As per diagram below, the Prodigy Cube is connected to the PC via USB and its optical output goes into the optical input of the XD-05. I volume matched the device by successively connecting their headphones output to the input of my PC internal soundcard, an ESI Juli@, and measuring their output volume with software. In that configuration and setup both devices essentially sound the same.



I then replaced the LME49860 of the Prodigy Cube by the v5i as can be seen on the following image.



Using my current favorite earphones which are the Simgot EN700 Pro, Toneking Nine Tails and Whizzer A15 Pro I then proceeded to test out the differences between the two opamps.

3) Testing: What struck me first was the bass response, tighter, punchier, better defined and seemingly louder with the v5i. Since the bass seemed louder I proceeded again with connecting the headphone outs of the devices to my Juli@ input in order to measure the frequency responses using a white noise file for playback. What I found out, using Voxengo SPAN in VSTHost for measurement, is that there was no difference in frequency responses, the earphones output of both devices being dead flat along the whole spectrum. So, unless I did something wrong or the testing methodology isn't adequate for a reason that escapes me, it appears the bass only seems more elevated and this feeling is certainly due solely to its significantly increased tightness.

After that I soon stopped "ABXing" and carried on with just listening to my favorites playlists using the Prodigy Cube/v5i only. As I was primarily using the Prodigy Cube/LME49860 before and was very used to its sound I sure went into a few more wows, mainly due to perceived increase in separation, soundstage and detail retrieval. At some point I felt the treble was sometimes grainy and running a sine sweep soon convinced me otherwise and that the "grain" must be treble texture/details.

4) Conclusion: This is in my opinion a very worthy upgrade and the v5i stays in my Prodigy Cube Black Edition. I'll certainly be purchasing a couple more of those opamps in the near future for putting in my less used devices, the XD-05 and Audinst Hud-MX1 (which also uses LME49860).