adydula
Headphoneus Supremus
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- Dec 14, 2010
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Burson Bang Amplifier
Hello, I just received a new amplifier from Burson. Its their very small dual mono Class AB power amp. Burson touts this as the worlds smallest dual mono Class AB power amp in the world. Its the same physical size as the Burson FUN headphone amplifier that I have, use and like very much.
The size is exactly like the Burson FUN, and seems orientated towards the computer audiophile. A great amp to drive some good bookshelf speakers. But as I found out it will drive speakers much bigger in size!
At first I thought this was a Class D amplifier due to its small size. I was surprised to hear that it is a Class AB amplifier. Burson also states it has no good things to say about Class D amps. They claim that it punches well out of its price class and is a contender for any challenger under $2000. That's a pretty strong statement!
In its design the built-in buffer stage, similar to their impedance matching cables, this one has the ability to select different impedance levels so different dacs, preamps, portable players and smartphones can be matched well to drive the amplifier.
The bang also has a neat attribute like the FUN in that the input buffer stage uses their discrete op amps and they encourage audio op amp rolling...so you can change out the Bangs op amp from the NE5532. V6 Classic or V6 Vivid. You have the option to purchase the BANG with either of these three op amps, the basic is $499, the others are $599. Combine this with the FUN which also is op amp roll-able the sound signature has several combinations.
Specifications:
Input Impedance: 100KOhms
Frequency Response: +/- 1 db 0 – 20Khz
THD: < 0.03%
Output Impedance: 1.5 Ohm @ 1Khz
Signal to Noise Ratio: 92.5db
Power @ 4 Ohms: 40 RMS W SNR: 91db Separation: 99%
Power @ 8 Ohms: 29 W RMS SNR: 91db Separation: 99%
Power @ 16 Ohms: 15.2 W RMS SNR: 91db Separation: 99%
The Burson Bang utilizes four sets of what they call “Max Current Power Supply”. This design precludes the use of a transformer in the unit itself. Burson claims that in the traditional design the use of rectifiers and capacitors is used to convert the AC into DC. They claim this method, old as the hills has two issues or shortcomings, impedance and noise.
Burson's MCPS or Max Current Power Supply removes the transformer altogether and instead uses transistors with less than 1 ohm compared to a typical transformer with approximately 15 ohms resistance or more. Instead of working with 50/60 Hz traditional linear power supply and capacitors Burson choose to raise the frequency to 170khz where any noise would be well above the human hearing threshold. Also at the higher frequency capacitors charge faster than at 50/60 Hz. So no need for large capacitors. Hence the very small footprint. You can read the details on Burson's site. Parts are high quality ELNA Audio Aluminum capacitors and 1% TDK SMD resistors.
It comes with a 100-240 VAC (12V 10A) external power supply, the unit and a 2.5mm hex key to open the amp for access to the select-able impedance switch and op amp. You also get some nice RCA interconnects I used to pair it with the FUN.
Amplifiers usually don't have a lot of switches, buttons and adjustments. This amp has the ability to swap op amps, change impedance and that's about it. Which is more than the norm. On the front the only thing you see is a small opening for the blue power on LED. Which is quite bright.
On the rear are RCA jacks for the inputs, banana jacks for the speaker outputs, the power adapter jack, a 12 v molex male connection and the on/off power switch. The unit does get warm and its not really suggested to install it in a PC case stuffed with other stuff.
Being the same size as the FUN they stack together nicely into a small compact footprint just great for a desktop hooked to a computer or other device. The FUN acts as the preamp in my case and the volume control in the FUN allows for easy control.
So how does it work with my speakers. I have tried the FUN/Bang combination with my highly modified Pioneer SP-BS22-LR designed by the famous Andrew Jones. The MSRP of these was $129.99 back in the day. They have a 4” woofer in a bass reflex curved cabinet. 6 Ohms and 85db sensitivity. The tweeter is a 1” dome. These speakers punch way above their class. Dennis Murphy of Philharmonic Audio is a wizard at making things better and he came up with a very good DIY upgrade for these that make them world class for their size. PM me if you want to know more. The other speakers are a pair of Salk SongTowers which are very well known for their abilities in a small floor standing MTM loudspeaker. They are 4 – 6 ohms with an 88db sensitivity. I include this so you can compare what you have for speakers.
Well....The Bang drives both of them very, very well with no straining at all. The Bang was set to high gain and it was way too much being driven by the Burson FUN, off came the covers and I flipped the two switches to the low gain settings for both channels. Even with the gain set to low I could never get the volume over 10 – 11 o'clock before the sound became too loud for me.
I listened for two hours playing a variety of music, both very well recorded and some mediocre. If you think the Bang will make the mediocre stuff sound good, its not going to happen. The one thing this amp does is add nothing to the material except amplification IMO. It has the ability that many other higher priced well designed amp has, clarity and articulation. Play good material and it sounds great, play mediocre stuff and its well...mediocre at best. I think it allows good material to shine thru with light saber articulation.
Music was Fourplay's “Between the Sheets”, Kasia Lins “Take My Tears”, Rene Olstead “Skylark”, A Girl Called Eddy, Roy Orbinson, Eric Clapton, Salk Demo 1, Eagles Greatest Hits, Doors LA Woman, Kirk Whalum, Boz Scaggs, Jackson Browne and Regina Spector. One tune I have that I like to use is the classic “Duende” by Bozzio, Levin and Stevens...its very demanding and it was presented first class with the FUN/BANG combination via the Salk Songtowers. If you don't have this in your demo closet please go get it....If this plays well then your amplification chain is OK fine.
I was shocked at how well this “small”, “tiny” amp, Class AB actually was able to drive the SongTowers to high levels of sound pressure. Painfully loud. The FUN had the Burson V6 Vivids installed and the overall presentation was on the bright side to me. So after an hour I opened up the FUN and stuck in the V6 Classics from Burson and immediately noticed things much smoother and less bright. Especially with Jennifer Warnes, “First We Take Manhattan”...so lush and smooth....melt in your mouth good.
After 30 minutes of hard playing the Bang was very warm to the touch, not hot but really warm...kind of like a Class A amp from other manufacturers. It sat it on top of the FUN and the FUN even got warm from it being so close to it, and its usually hardy warm to the touch ever. I can see why you would not want this in a PC chassis with poor airflow...heat is the great destroyer of electronic parts. I would even go so far as to mount some larger feet on the Bang to elevate it for better ventilation. ' The design uses the case as a heat sink...drive this amp hard and it does get toasty.
SalkSongTowers with the tiny Pioneers on top of them:
The other thing that is very noticeable is the overall build quality. The PCN, parts, layout is very nice, first class for sure. I do lots of DIY and this layout and build quality is hard to duplicate in DIY stuff.
So it is worth the $499 for the entry level amp? If you pair this with a Burson FUN as the preamp, you have a 40 watt rms amp that will drive a good set of bookshelf speakers into the stratosphere, and this is where I intend to use it mainly. I plan on hooking up to the modded Pioneers and use the combination for listening and gaming as well as a headphone listening station with the Bang Off.
In my humble opinion its as good if not better than many of the low end amps out there and is equal to or better than others costing much more. Burson has a great combination that is very versatile and a nice small footprint, so yes its worth it to me....just leave some space around it for cooling.
Thanks to Burson Audio for providing this unit for evaluation. Burson from time to time has asked me to evaluate their products which I get to sometimes keep afterwards.
Alex
Hello, I just received a new amplifier from Burson. Its their very small dual mono Class AB power amp. Burson touts this as the worlds smallest dual mono Class AB power amp in the world. Its the same physical size as the Burson FUN headphone amplifier that I have, use and like very much.
The size is exactly like the Burson FUN, and seems orientated towards the computer audiophile. A great amp to drive some good bookshelf speakers. But as I found out it will drive speakers much bigger in size!
At first I thought this was a Class D amplifier due to its small size. I was surprised to hear that it is a Class AB amplifier. Burson also states it has no good things to say about Class D amps. They claim that it punches well out of its price class and is a contender for any challenger under $2000. That's a pretty strong statement!
In its design the built-in buffer stage, similar to their impedance matching cables, this one has the ability to select different impedance levels so different dacs, preamps, portable players and smartphones can be matched well to drive the amplifier.
The bang also has a neat attribute like the FUN in that the input buffer stage uses their discrete op amps and they encourage audio op amp rolling...so you can change out the Bangs op amp from the NE5532. V6 Classic or V6 Vivid. You have the option to purchase the BANG with either of these three op amps, the basic is $499, the others are $599. Combine this with the FUN which also is op amp roll-able the sound signature has several combinations.
Specifications:
Input Impedance: 100KOhms
Frequency Response: +/- 1 db 0 – 20Khz
THD: < 0.03%
Output Impedance: 1.5 Ohm @ 1Khz
Signal to Noise Ratio: 92.5db
Power @ 4 Ohms: 40 RMS W SNR: 91db Separation: 99%
Power @ 8 Ohms: 29 W RMS SNR: 91db Separation: 99%
Power @ 16 Ohms: 15.2 W RMS SNR: 91db Separation: 99%
The Burson Bang utilizes four sets of what they call “Max Current Power Supply”. This design precludes the use of a transformer in the unit itself. Burson claims that in the traditional design the use of rectifiers and capacitors is used to convert the AC into DC. They claim this method, old as the hills has two issues or shortcomings, impedance and noise.
Burson's MCPS or Max Current Power Supply removes the transformer altogether and instead uses transistors with less than 1 ohm compared to a typical transformer with approximately 15 ohms resistance or more. Instead of working with 50/60 Hz traditional linear power supply and capacitors Burson choose to raise the frequency to 170khz where any noise would be well above the human hearing threshold. Also at the higher frequency capacitors charge faster than at 50/60 Hz. So no need for large capacitors. Hence the very small footprint. You can read the details on Burson's site. Parts are high quality ELNA Audio Aluminum capacitors and 1% TDK SMD resistors.
It comes with a 100-240 VAC (12V 10A) external power supply, the unit and a 2.5mm hex key to open the amp for access to the select-able impedance switch and op amp. You also get some nice RCA interconnects I used to pair it with the FUN.
Amplifiers usually don't have a lot of switches, buttons and adjustments. This amp has the ability to swap op amps, change impedance and that's about it. Which is more than the norm. On the front the only thing you see is a small opening for the blue power on LED. Which is quite bright.
On the rear are RCA jacks for the inputs, banana jacks for the speaker outputs, the power adapter jack, a 12 v molex male connection and the on/off power switch. The unit does get warm and its not really suggested to install it in a PC case stuffed with other stuff.
Being the same size as the FUN they stack together nicely into a small compact footprint just great for a desktop hooked to a computer or other device. The FUN acts as the preamp in my case and the volume control in the FUN allows for easy control.
So how does it work with my speakers. I have tried the FUN/Bang combination with my highly modified Pioneer SP-BS22-LR designed by the famous Andrew Jones. The MSRP of these was $129.99 back in the day. They have a 4” woofer in a bass reflex curved cabinet. 6 Ohms and 85db sensitivity. The tweeter is a 1” dome. These speakers punch way above their class. Dennis Murphy of Philharmonic Audio is a wizard at making things better and he came up with a very good DIY upgrade for these that make them world class for their size. PM me if you want to know more. The other speakers are a pair of Salk SongTowers which are very well known for their abilities in a small floor standing MTM loudspeaker. They are 4 – 6 ohms with an 88db sensitivity. I include this so you can compare what you have for speakers.
Well....The Bang drives both of them very, very well with no straining at all. The Bang was set to high gain and it was way too much being driven by the Burson FUN, off came the covers and I flipped the two switches to the low gain settings for both channels. Even with the gain set to low I could never get the volume over 10 – 11 o'clock before the sound became too loud for me.
I listened for two hours playing a variety of music, both very well recorded and some mediocre. If you think the Bang will make the mediocre stuff sound good, its not going to happen. The one thing this amp does is add nothing to the material except amplification IMO. It has the ability that many other higher priced well designed amp has, clarity and articulation. Play good material and it sounds great, play mediocre stuff and its well...mediocre at best. I think it allows good material to shine thru with light saber articulation.
Music was Fourplay's “Between the Sheets”, Kasia Lins “Take My Tears”, Rene Olstead “Skylark”, A Girl Called Eddy, Roy Orbinson, Eric Clapton, Salk Demo 1, Eagles Greatest Hits, Doors LA Woman, Kirk Whalum, Boz Scaggs, Jackson Browne and Regina Spector. One tune I have that I like to use is the classic “Duende” by Bozzio, Levin and Stevens...its very demanding and it was presented first class with the FUN/BANG combination via the Salk Songtowers. If you don't have this in your demo closet please go get it....If this plays well then your amplification chain is OK fine.
I was shocked at how well this “small”, “tiny” amp, Class AB actually was able to drive the SongTowers to high levels of sound pressure. Painfully loud. The FUN had the Burson V6 Vivids installed and the overall presentation was on the bright side to me. So after an hour I opened up the FUN and stuck in the V6 Classics from Burson and immediately noticed things much smoother and less bright. Especially with Jennifer Warnes, “First We Take Manhattan”...so lush and smooth....melt in your mouth good.
After 30 minutes of hard playing the Bang was very warm to the touch, not hot but really warm...kind of like a Class A amp from other manufacturers. It sat it on top of the FUN and the FUN even got warm from it being so close to it, and its usually hardy warm to the touch ever. I can see why you would not want this in a PC chassis with poor airflow...heat is the great destroyer of electronic parts. I would even go so far as to mount some larger feet on the Bang to elevate it for better ventilation. ' The design uses the case as a heat sink...drive this amp hard and it does get toasty.
SalkSongTowers with the tiny Pioneers on top of them:
The other thing that is very noticeable is the overall build quality. The PCN, parts, layout is very nice, first class for sure. I do lots of DIY and this layout and build quality is hard to duplicate in DIY stuff.
So it is worth the $499 for the entry level amp? If you pair this with a Burson FUN as the preamp, you have a 40 watt rms amp that will drive a good set of bookshelf speakers into the stratosphere, and this is where I intend to use it mainly. I plan on hooking up to the modded Pioneers and use the combination for listening and gaming as well as a headphone listening station with the Bang Off.
In my humble opinion its as good if not better than many of the low end amps out there and is equal to or better than others costing much more. Burson has a great combination that is very versatile and a nice small footprint, so yes its worth it to me....just leave some space around it for cooling.
Thanks to Burson Audio for providing this unit for evaluation. Burson from time to time has asked me to evaluate their products which I get to sometimes keep afterwards.
Alex
