Burson Conductor - DAC/amp successor to the HA-160D - Page 11

If you do not listen to any music and do nothing it should idle.

 

It's one of the major issues with the Tenor chip. The same issues came up when Audio-GD was using it. 

 

Yeah, the issue is it doesn't idle...ever.  As soon as I turn power switch off, it'll idle as normal.

 

That's a known issue with the Tenor chip. I have the same issue with mine in my Audio-gd stuff. It sucks

My computer won't boot if the Conductor is on, probably due to that chip, but I almost always turn it on after the computer, so w/e.

I'm not using Conductor with computer too frequently, but once I did, I have noticed that my macbook woke up for no reason for few seconds and then gone to sleep again. I have noticed it because before sleeping the notebook I was listening to music via Audirvana app, so when notebook woke it started to play few seconds and then stopped as it gone into sleep. Also external USB HDD was connected that time to notebook, nothing else. I was not investigating this as it did happen (or I have noticed) only once...

 

On other side I just yesterday noticed that when I select USB (or other digital input) and do have volume and gain on MAX, I can clearly hear specific noise in the left channel of headphones, even with nothing connected to Conductor. I'm not sure if it's only my device showing this behaviour, or common issue though. It is not a problem because when having volume set to normal (or louder) listening levels I can't hear it, really it's there only on nearly max or max level..

just took delivery of my Conductor....will be using coax via Audiophilleo 2....sure like what I am hearing so far...

I found mine changed quite a bit after the first night of use.  It's the only source component I've really noticed burn-in with.

Is the lack of idle an issue with the chip itself (hardware) or the driver (firmware/software)?  I suspect that's more of a software, signaling , issue.  I know Tenor (or Far East Galaxy) is working with Burson on a 64 bit driver for Windows 8 and hopefully they can solve that issue.  I know the current, 32 bit, driver doesn't play well with JPLAY which is a very low latency player.  I'm not an engineer but the idle issue may be what's causing the problem with JPLAY but that's just assumption on my part.

Probably should have mentioned this in my previous post, but I'm running win7 64bit.  Is anyone able to successfully idle on x64?  My initial thoughts is this may strictly be a 64 bit only issue.

Until you guys said this I didn't realize the computer never goes idle. I also have win7 64  and it does not idle.

I usually tell my computers not to anyways, so it' s been a non- issue for me.

That has been my case too, though I hope these problems get fixed by the new driver update.

 

Ah, If you are planning to install windows 8, it wouldn't work with conductor just yet, but from what I understand, the win8 drivers will be out soon.

I have been using the Conductor for approximately a month now, initially with HD800s but then with ATH-W3000ANVs from last Friday, some of my impressions:

Current setup is:
iPod classic > Wadia 171i transport > Burson Conductor > W3000ANV

With the HD800s I was experimenting with the different gain settings and it appeared that, at the same volume (though I had no way of measuring), the low gain seemed slightly more relaxed and laid-back than medium or high gain. But the difference was small so I'm not sure if it's an actual difference or just my hearing. I settled on medium gain for the HD800s.

The pairing is very good in terms of detail, soundstage and linearity, no specific part of the frequency range dominates, and I felt it produced a particularly realistic sound with acoustic/live music, and is perfectly capable with other genres.

However, I felt I needed something that could complement the HD800s, hence the W3000s, and I have to say the Conductor/W3000 pairing is phenomenal to my ears.

The Conductor is at low gain for the W3000s, either 9 o'clock or one step higher on the volume. The sound is rich and deep, more than enough bass, certainly when coming from the HD800s, but still with exceptional detail retrieval.

I feel like nothing is given up when switching away from the HD800, but the W3000 gives me a far greater sense of euphony and musicality, which is tremendously addictive; there is no urge to "notice" any small things in the songs but instead just to get lost in the music.

Here are my impressions on the Conductor and if you want to read my full story here.