[lmf22]

Dead thread I guess. No interest in these Burson products? They are starting to get discounted. I paid $999 for a new open box Conductor 3 XP. It is a really high quality piece if you use the remote instead of the fiddly volume knob. I also have a demo Conductor Reference SE coming so I can compare mods and have an RCA input to the amp section to compare other dacs. $699 plus $50 shipping from Australia.

I'm definitely still interested in Burson products! I like how powerful they are and looks great on my desk.
I started with the Playmate 2, upgraded to the Conductor 3 Performance, and got the Conductor 3 Reference in September.
Their sales are great. The Conductor 3R was a show demo and I got it for less than $900.

 

[sendler2112]

I'm unpacking my show demo Conductor Reference SE now. Ordered it Monday and it arrived from Australia Friday. I guess it should be already well broken in. First impression is WOW! So powerful, fast, dynamic, finely detailed. Pretty much the opposite of laid back, romantic, or distant.

 

[sendler2112]

I'm definitely still interested in Burson products! I like how powerful they are and looks great on my desk.
I started with the Playmate 2, upgraded to the Conductor 3 Performance, and got the Conductor 3 Reference in September.
Their sales are great. The Conductor 3R was a show demo and I got it for less than $900.

How much have you compared the Burson Conductor Performance to the Reference? I went back and forth quite a bit and found that they were fairly close. On some tracks, I thought I might prefer the Performance. It seems to have a slightly more distant soundstage compared to the more powerful front row perspective of the Reference. And then on other tracks the reference had a better grip on complex and loud passages maintaining control and separation of the instruments better and with slightly better fine detail which showed that the ambient detail was still there but just had a different balance in the presentation compared to the more powerful primary depiction of the instruments. This was with the Burson Vivid op amps in both units. I have the exact sister sets of Youkamoo headphone cables, one with balanced XLR and the other with single ended connectors. The Performance 3 XP seems to have only half power on the single ended output so I don't ever use that. There may be a slight advantage to it in the balanced cable. I may end up buying a Burson Reference X to play with also If I really find that the Sparkos Pro amps take these to the high level that initial listening indicates that they will

Next up today will be the Vivids versus the Sparkos Pro amps in the Reference. It is a good thing I ordered another set of the Sparkos Pro that were not pre assembled onto the dual dip adapter boards since the Burson Reference SE has two duals and two singles. My original plan for these was to wire them up to dip connectors without the adapter boards to save a couple mm in order to get them under the hood of the Performance

 

[sendler2112]

So, another question for the mods: Is it just me? Or, do posts on this thread never show up on the new posts feed page. Is anyone that is not already subscribed to this thread from when it was hot in years past even seeing these new posts? I don't find a tab to even contact a moderator about this.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/bur...r-3x-performance.928111/page-16#post-17892040

 

[buson160man]

Myself I used to have Burson conductor 3 ref. Being a fan of Burson products for many years. I still have my HA160. When I bought the conductor 3 ref there was something that bothered me about its sound. I compared it to my ha-160 and found that I preferred the sound on the HA-160. I heard a definite signature from the switching power supply on the newer conductor that was not present on the HA-160. I sold the conductor REF 3 and went back to my HA-160 it sounded better. I purchased a soloist Og off ebay and upgraded the fuse to a hifi tuning supreme fuse and it just smoked the conductor 3 ref. It was way better sounding than the new unit. I attribute it ti the analog power supply on the older Burson unit.

 

[sendler2112]

I heard a definite signature from the switching power supply on the newer conductor that was not present on the HA-160. I sold the conductor REF 3 and went back to my HA-160 it sounded better.

As far as switching power supplies: I used to build and compare many different amp circuits for High end also DIY loudspeakers 15 years ago. And built a few different highly filtered and bypassed, unregulated, gigantic toroidal power supplies since it was always assumed that analog power was always better. Until I tried some basic switching power supplies from Mean Well out of convenience. And they sounded better. More dynamic and transparent.

I do agree though that there is a slight sense of thickness to the Conductor Reference that the Conductor XP and Aune S17 do not have. I sent my S17 back (early version wonky volume control) so the only 2 amps that I have here right now are the Bursons. The S17 does have some charm by offering a slightly more distant perspective which could be said to have a better ease. Less exciting on rock. But at least now I have something with a line in which is why I bought the Reference in single ended so that I can experiment with it as an external amp for the DAC section of the Burson XP and Aune X8 and whatever else I end up with. The X8 is running a Sparkos Pro dual op amp and I did have a set in the XP as well but stole two of those to rewire for the Reference. I had ordered 8 more raw Sparkos Pro boards to build them up without the dip adapter boards to more minimize the wire and get them smaller to fit under the hood of the XP but ended up using two of them in the Reference SE since 2 of its op amps are singles. So now will have to order at least a couple more in order to get the Vivid amps replaced in that unit also.

 

[lmf22]

How much have you compared the Burson Conductor Performance to the Reference? I went back and forth quite a bit and found that they were fairly close. On some tracks, I thought I might prefer the Performance. It seems to have a slightly more distant soundstage compared to the more powerful front row perspective of the Reference. And then on other tracks the reference had a better grip on complex and loud passages maintaining control and separation of the instruments better and with slightly better fine detail which showed that the ambient detail was still there but just had a different balance in the presentation compared to the more powerful primary depiction of the instruments. This was with the Burson Vivid op amps in both units. I have the exact sister sets of Youkamoo headphone cables, one with balanced XLR and the other with single ended connectors. The Performance 3 XP seems to have only half power on the single ended output so I don't ever use that. There may be a slight advantage to it in the balanced cable. I may end up buying a Burson Reference X to play with also If I really find that the Sparkos Pro amps take these to the high level that initial listening indicates that they will

Next up today will be the Vivids versus the Sparkos Pro amps in the Reference. It is a good thing I ordered another set of the Sparkos Pro that were not pre assembled onto the dual dip adapter boards since the Burson Reference SE has two duals and two singles. My original plan for these was to wire them up to dip connectors without the adapter boards to save a couple mm in order to get them under the hood of the Performance

I haven't done any dedicated comparisons of the Conductor 3 Performance and Conductor 3 Reference. I've only compared them in a casual way. Upgrading from the Performance to the Reference didn't give that wow-factor like going from Playmate 2 to Conductor 3 Performance. So the Performance and Reference were pretty close. From what I remember, the Reference had more details, more air between instruments/vocals, better control in the bass, and quieter background. Both had Vivid op-amps, stock power supply, and single ended. All of these weren't huge differences, but noticeable, and for the price I got it was worth the upgrade for me.

I think it's awesome you're trying different op-amps. Looking forward to hearing more about them.