1. Introduction:

Burson playmate is very close to Burson Swing / Fun pair with respect to sound signature except the missing coaxial input on Playmate.

There is not easy way to differentiate among them so that following statements are considered as the latest revision of Swing/Fun pair and at the same time my first review of Playmate.



Fig.1, Playmate and Fun

However, Playmate’s headphone out is slightly different from headphone jack output of playmate. The sound is fuller and more bodied and somewhat mid centric in comparison to those pair.

I prefer Playmate-headphone amp sound signature where strings and winds are more realistic and I feel being listening to in real concert hall.

I denote that playmate headphone output sound signature portion of the review is written in italic letter.

If those reader who already my review for Swing/Fun combination review, then they can read only statement in italic.

2. Audio chain for review: Stock opamp version, Swing/Fun and Tppping Dx7s/Yulong A18 were used for this review, and headphones are hd800(S) / he-560v3 / Fidelio X2. usb stabilizer of Ifi audio nano usb3.0, are sitting between the digital source and the dac.


3. Musical genre for listening: Classical orchestral music I listened for review is entire sound track of Turandot of Puccini's opera, which has good combination of instrumentals and vocals in various scales so that layers of sounds are felt / reviewed through these chain of audio devices.

As indicated in the review of “Audiofool Reviews” - https://audiofool.reviews/2019/02/04/burson-swing/”- which is very technical for hardware, Burson’s new technology of power management makes their new products independent of DC power supply that is usual noisy SMPS. This fact proves itself when the dac is fed by low noise LPS I cannot detect any difference.

It is very appealing that the operating point frequency of their new “Max Current Power Supply (MCPS)” is set at 170khz instead of just higher than 20 khz of audio band. This might prevent any possibility of higher frequencies of harmonics from folding back into the audio band.

4. Some preliminary listening

According to my memory of Burson’s original Conductor and Soloist, they sounded smooth with details, but they didn’t have enough dynamism, whereas Playmate sounds with high dynamism with much more fun factor like rhythmical and vivid presentation of the sound field that includes those ambient sound around the music. These effects generate holographic nature of sound. I think it is due to the redesign of their new MCPS, and they returned back main stream engineering through feedback control using opamps from their minimalist approach that had been applied to those original Conductor / Soloist.

It is very interesting that single Ess9038 q2m of 2 channel chip can compete against quad or octa core channel chip version dac. I think this balancing of performances between upstream ( dac) and downstream amp, so that the total performance are added up to the equal level of amp alone performance due to fact that downstream section dominates the performance of overall system and proved as followings:
It reminds me of Schiit's claim that 32 bit resolution of dac is simply a joke when they introduced Yggdrasil dac of 21 bit supported by their special closed form filters, those combination of which surpasses many top-class dacs (of 32bit) of that time. This indicates that we are not hearing dac chip alone but every cascaded connections .ie. system.

Playmate / Fun has defined bass in good texture and extended treble in keeping graininess to the minimum.
I am not much care of staging but seems good for movie or game so that it provides enough sense of space.

Playmate headphone output has more bodied, fuller, richer, and more organic than any other pairs like Topping dx7s /Yulong A18. In comparison to Playmate (preamp) or Swing / Fun pair, highs are more refined and sense of dispersion, so that it is easier with ears.


5. More listening in some comparison:

I tried some combinations of dac / amp, like compared to dx7s and the internal amp, to dx7s as dac and Yulong.
Playmate generates sound field so vivid and spacious that it is immediate differentiating its pair among any combination except Swing / Fun.
While detailed yet maintaining minimized graininess of sound field. You can feel the surrounding around the source. It is engaging and fun and vivid.

For classical orchestral music listening, the most important thing is cohesiveness of sound of big band music with enough details. I think Playmate meets my expectations. Especially through busy section of all the instrumental outburst of sound where all my usual dac and amp pair has its limitation, Playmate does very well.

Presentation of Strings is so realistic and natural where Swing/Fun has more energy that might mask realistic presentation.

Bass presentation in orchestral music in play of contrabass is also exceptional with sense or presence of being seated in real concert hall.

In general, the sound of Playmate/Headphone jack is more onto concert hall presence and natural, where Topping/A18 is clean / crisp but has somewhat artificial in comparison to Playmate/Headphone jack.

This reduced or dispersed or smoothed highs of Playmate allows me relistening to classical orchestral music that has balanced weight between strings and winds, one of which is symphony 7 of Beethoven. The play of the music is really appealing and amazing, where now winds are solid places on the sonic landscape of the huge orchestral instrument layout.

Now winds are distinct but harmonious among sound field.

Fig.2, Other audio dac / amp for comparison

I think this balance is significant thing for those who are looking for smooth sound especially in highs of strings. But this is almost impossible to get the smoothness everywhere and every time on those areas. Because the grainy nature of the music in highs are depending on our freshness of our bio-hearing system. For example the first time listening to classical music ( maybe any instrumental music) after long time absence of wideband sonic information, the music is really grain free and buttery smooth, and this quality does not stay long enough after having fatigued in an hour or so.

That tells that seeking after smoothness or liquid quality is something difficult or next to impossible job.

However if you looking for balanced sonic quality such as balance between string and wind, then Playmate can be an answer. That balance is more stable and tangible than the smoothness of the music that may be there in some certainty but there is no guarantee that you can get it from music.

Playmate can easily resolve down to details and at the same time the outburst is listenable indeed with cohesiveness and enough energy without sense of clamping due to being congested-ness due to the unresolved outburst of big-band sound.

I tested with He-560 V3 and the result is amazing. The generic liquidity of planar is now enhanced to the highs where planar liquidity has trouble to its highest end. But with Playmate has success in that area and I enjoyed the grain free highs.

With HD800/S Playmate gives more sense of space and ambient quality around sound source with no sense of brightness compared to any other pairs. There is every detail with lushness as is felt in planar.
Tonal balance is spot on, and orchestration of big band is now vivid and detailed without grainy.

With Fidelio X2, the combination removes the sibilant nature of the phone in the upper highs which is always trouble with my usual gears. Now X2 has controlled highs or less fatiguing than any other pairs and sligtly better than Swing/Fun.

6. Audio listening with system as in a dac as a node in system:

Fig.3, Head-fi as a system

We all hear all those nodes and links that forms audio chain, so that my comparison is limited, but Swing with what I have now is the best among my current gears.

Stock form of Playmate is so good that I want to upgrade to discreet opamps to see what degree they can push the boundary of sonic field. Because the stock opamp has known limitation for band-width and the power due to entirely current mode operation inside whereas discrete one can be optimized by external passive components which are not allowed in IC form opamp.

7. A final thought
Playmate has better and natural presentation for highs and lows, especially mids that attract me more so that it makes more organic and pleasant without sacrificing other good natures of liquidity and rhythmic nature.

The most important improvement in Playmate is getting balance in sonic field where everything can be shown layer after layer of sonic fields.

Especially large orchestral classical music, the balance nature is more important than liquidity, and edged details which are formed by emphasized high-notes. And hence high note based detailed sounding might mask the real presence of mid key based instrument.

I should put a comment that feature of the remote is so weak that it does not help much for clumsy effort to change filter / connection rather than simply volume changes.

Testing audio devices: Windows 10 -> ifi usb nano 3.0 -> Gemini dual head usb cable -> Singxer f1-> Burson audio Swing that has Burson audio V6 classic dual x2 and single x2 - Fun with V6 vivid opamps -> HD800s. The same chain of gears but Topping Dx7s / Yulong A18 for comparison.

Introduction: Burson provided me with opamps for free in exchange of honest review. I am familiar with Burson audio's original full size conductor and the soloist. According to my memory they have liquidy and gentle sound signature in those old Bursons but they were sounding too polite and lacking in dynamical nature, which forced me to sell them all and I got Krell ksa 5 that had 8 watt per channel.
Also I had a Gustard h10 that has the same weaknesses in that regards. Simply there are some people who think that liquidity or buttery is not enough.

Now my Burson gears have come long way to address those lacking spots in their product line. Those crops are Swing and Fun whose name represent what they have tried to achieve: Dynamism in the Swing and Tempos in the Fun which have shared the same essential engines that are V6 Classic opamps.
In those opamps have good muscles to support the dynamism but they need the supporting devices too which I thinks MCPS (maximum current power supply), and their minimalist approach has been changed to the main stream engineering of modern days which has full use of excellent electronics that justify in large margin to support high fidelity devices: The solution is feed back where opamps are really playing out their power.

From minimalist to mainstream:
Having return back to mainstream, my Swing redefines the sonic qualities of fullness, rhythmic, and energy across all the audio spectrum while maintaining the old liquidity. The improved quality was obvious when I changed from stock opamps to ad797 to V6 Classics. During the changing I felt repeating the same history of Burson's old to new transformation: The stock and ad797 gave me the improvement, whereas V6Classics impressed me in big way with way more dynamism and energy with the same old liquidity of smooth quality.
Also I found more detail.

In Comparison: My Topping DX7s / Yulong A18 have been now with my new Silver Xlr cables upgraded sound signature in another level. Swing / Fun pair was toe to toe or superior in many areas. With Fidelio X2 or He-560V3 there are almost no difference between them. Finally HD800s were need to get difference between two sets of gears. Now Swing / Fun pair has more fullness and more energy with more extension to sub-bass.

Conclusion:
I think V6 Classic opamps produce more energetic and rhythmic sound while they maintain the same old smooth sound signature by Burson's experties across all subsystem level technologies to fill those missing holes, which are now solved with V6 classic opamps.

1. Audio chain for review: Stock opamp version and Fun and Yulong A18 were used for this review, and headphones are hd800 / he-560v3 / Fidelio X2. usb stabilizer of Singxer f-1, usb to coaxial converter of Ifi audio nano usb3.0, are sitting between the digital source and the dac.


2. Music: The music I listened (more than 30 times) for review is entire sound track of Turandot of Puccini's opera, which has good combination of instrumentals and vocals in various scales so that layers of sounds are felt / reviewed through these chain of audio devices.



3. Hardware: USB performance is impressive in comparison to Coax output of F-1, both of which are sharing the same XMOS XU208 and similar quality resonators. F-1 sounds more polite whereas Swing USB has more open in comparison. However there is no significant difference, and I decided to remove F-1 for more desk space.

As indicated in the review of “Audiofool Reviews” - https://audiofool.reviews/2019/02/04/burson-swing/”- which is very technical for hardware, Burson’s new technology of power management makes the dac and its siblings (Fun) get independent of DC power supply that is usual noisy SMPS. This fact proves itself when the dac is fed by low noise LPS I cannot detect any difference.

It is very appealing that the operating point frequency of their new “Max Current Power Supply” is set at 170khz instead of just higher than 20 khz of audio band. This might prevent any possibility of higher frequencies of harmonics from folding back into the audio band.


4. Some preliminary listening to: One of the ways to qualifying dac/amp in comparison to the other pairs is by increasing the gain of amplifier until your ears cannot bear the sound.

In this simple comparison to my Topping dx7s,
Surprisingly Swing allows 10% volume increase to my usual dac/amp pairs, which means the same amount dynamic range extended, and enables to describe more details in the extended sound space.

In comparison to Dx7s with Yulong A18, Swing with Burson Fun with V6 vivid is not inferior at all. Rather Burson brothers are more spacious and detailed.
When considering Yulong's reputation and the price, it is indeed surprising.

It is very interesting that single Ess9038 q2m of 2 channel chip can compete against quad or octa core channel chip version dac.
It reminds me of Schiit's claim that 32 bit resolution of dac is simply a joke when they introduced Yggdrasil dac of 21 bit supported by their special closed form filters, those combination of which surpasses many top-class dacs (of 32bit) of that time. This indicates that we are not hearing dac chip alone but every cascaded connections .ie. system.

Swing has More defined bass in good texture with almost equal amount or more in volume, and extended treble in keeping graininess to the minimum.
Fluidic nature is obvious more than my current dacs.
I am not much care of staging but seems good for movie or game so that it provides enough sense of space.

5. More listening in some comparison: I tried some combinations of dac / amp, like compared to dx7s and the internal amp, to dx7s as dac and Yulong, and to Swing and Fun.

The best combination of dac / amp is Swing with stock opamps (I wish to have V6 classic opamps) / Fun with V6 vivid opamp version. This pair generates sound field so vivid and spacious that it is immediate differentiating its pair among any combination.
While detailed yet maintaining minimized graininess of sound field. You can feel the surrounding around the source. It is engaging and fun and vivid.
This combination is worthy buying a linear power supplier, and I ordered for what can this adds more musical quality.

For classical orchestral music listening, the most important thing is cohesiveness of sound of big band music with enough details. I think Swing / Fun meets my expectations. Especially through busy section of all the instrumental outburst of sound where all my usual dac and amp pair has its limitation, Swing / Fun pair does very well.

Swing/Fun can easily resolve down to details and at the same time the outburst is listenable indeed with cohesiveness and enough energy without sense of clamping due to being congested-ness due to the unresolved outburst of big-band sound.

I tested with He-560 V3 (35 ohms identical to Sundara, that is weird) and the result is amazing. The generic liquidity of planar is now enhanced to the highs where planar liquidity has trouble to its highest end. But with Swing / Fun has success in that area and I enjoyed the grain free highs.

You should listen to He-560 V3 of 35 ohms violin strings of orchestral music of Turandot of Puccini! Those silky nature of highs.

With HD800 Swing/Fun combination gives more sense of space and ambient quality around sound source with little bit sense of brightness. Hd800 has good matched with Fun. Sound is not harsh even though Fun with vivid is expected to be sharp at least.
There is every detail with lushness as is felt in planar.
Tonal balance is spot on, and orchestration of big band is now vivid and detailed without grainy nature. Better matched with he560v3.


With Fidelio X2, the combination removes the sibilant nature of the phone in the upper highs which is always trouble with my usual gears. I didn’t know X2 has this much scaling capability in the big band music. Swing / Fun combination makes the x2 get more head time than any other phone at least for listening to Turandot.

With IEM, noise floor is monitored but I cannot hear the noise floor with KZ ZS10 pro through FUN or Yulong A18. The sound from the pro is better than any other combination of my previous dac/amp.

USB performance seems equal or better than Coax which seems more polite and some liquidity nature of the sound field. However, USB has more rich and wide-band sound signature that picks more ambient sound as in real concert hall feelings. I should note that Swing of this quality achievement is supported by Usb stabilizer, ifi nano usb3.0 and its dual head usb cable, and the usb to coax converter of Singxer f1. However direct connection of USB port of Swing is more open and spacious sound whereas Coax from F-1 is polite to my taste as indicated in the introduction.


6. Audio listening with respect to the holistic view as in a dac as a node in system: We all hear all those nodes and links that forms audio chain, so that my comparison is limited, but Swing with what I have now is the best among my current gears.


Stock form of Swing is so good that I want to upgrade to discreet opamps to see what degree they can push the boundary of sonic field. Because the stock opamp has known limitation for band-width and the power due to entirely current mode operation inside whereas discrete one can be optimized by external passive components which are not allowed in IC form opamp.

7. A final thought:

I think Burson hit a home run with single Swing for Fun, when you consider Burson has never made stand-alone dac. Even though they chose a single and humble ess 8038q2m chip, Swing surpasses 2 chip or 4 channel version, and equivalent to 8 channel version of the chip .ie. 9038pro. That proves Burson's prowess for audio dac engineering.

I think they know what they are doing.

The reason for this review is simply to introduce new addition of inexpensive / affordable phones which succeeds the already well introduced Suplerux hd668b, and I need to avoid hijacking the thread dedicated to the 668b. Because I already posted series of my impression on that thread of https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sup...t-good-or-just-a-cheap-copycat.485039/page-16

Following review is for my moded Superlux hd672 with Oripads and sponge cover sheet on the original speaker fabric.
The stock earpads were not my taste so that I decided to replace ear friendly ones.
Reader can find review for stock form in link: https://primeaudio.org/superlux-hd672-review/



My audio chain is Foobar2000 > Ifi nano USB3.0 > Fx audio dac x7> Yulong A18> hd672 moded.

Following review is the part of my series review on: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sup...t-good-or-just-a-cheap-copycat.485039/page-16.

One of the series is repeated below:

What I hear echos to those review in the link of https://primeaudio.org/superlux-hd672-review/, and highly linear / detailed / strong textured bass that never bleeds over to other areas.
Today is my 7th day listening to almost solely to this phone, there is no hint of broken-in yet but become more attractive.
Male and female vocals are good better than Nighthawk, and similar to Th-900.
It might be my primary phone to watch movie due to light weight and first overall the clear diction of spoken words.
With small volume listening, it proves good linearity and high dynamic range.
However, whenever I listen to busy and complex passage of orchestral music it still has feeling of congested towards high side.

With small band music like pop/metal/chamber music, it is second to none among my all phones, with no congestion whatsoever.
Because the high is bit prominent and strong bass, it can be said V shaped phone.
But V-shaped phone is misleading, actual plot of FR shows it is as neutral as hd800, t1, or hd650 which has rolling off rapidly bass region.
Following frequency responses are found in the links: http://diyah.boards.net/thread/1840/superlux-hd672?page=1
The 1st one is of stock form, and the 2nd one is modified form.
Modification of mines with Ori-pads might be somewhere in between, however I cannot measure and show.


The V-shape is not the scientific language but language to explain for the users of hd-6x0, hd-800, t1, or Akg 70x.

It is really different phone among my collection Fidelio X2, Nighthawk, Superlux hd668b (also moded with Brainwaz hybrid pads), that stands out to be a bright beauty among them.
However the high is bit bright but not sibilant.

[edit 24th Sep 2018]
I uncovered the speaker fabric and found the speak quality, and bit surprised at seeing how it is flimsy and weak of the speaker. This poor construction of the polymer cone might not reproduce faithfully recorded sound.
This view of the phone is mechanical point of view where I have been trained for life.
But other persons might have different opinions.
We all might hope that Chinese headphone makers make a miracle to satisfy and save head-fiers among greedy US or European or Japanese makers.
I think now this kind of miracle might not be easily happened.
I might also hope those helpless hope on these Superlux phones.
On the 8th day today, I adjusted the rating down to 3.5 stars due to no further improvement and began showing its weakness for congesting in certain passage of complex music, missing fullness in the sound for certain song or music.

It is really surprising to find this high quality CD performance in analog and digital format.
When I connected it to Burson Audio Conductor, all the ignored CD library came back to life.
This quality of performance is almost equivalent to Oppo BDP 105 in my rig.
This is really my X-mas gift, and a very good gift.
 
When I listened to LCD-2.2 with it, it was really surprising that there are textured bass and not fatiguing highs and beautiful mids in thick blanket.
What I did not get this much impression from more higher rig, but this I am spending very pleasant x-mas holidays.

I connected BDP 105 to Schiit Lry with Telefunken tubes-HE 5LE, and listened to Wagner Sigfrieds funeral march, Bach Mass B minor, and some vocals of Wagners.

The first impression was fluidity and being spaciousness so that I stood in the concert room.
I felt the 3 dimensional space of musical sources.

It was not the case with Bifrost without Uber upgrade, which was once my savior of Mahler symphony 8.
The symphony requires high definition to represents 1000 men and women choirs and extended orchestra with adding pipe organs for example.
With 105, it seemed to carry me to real concert hall.

However BDP-105 seemed to transport another level with liquidity and musicality.
it forgave much lower quality recording down to 256 rate as usual itune source.

Another noticeable improvement is the SQ of wind instrument when it plays back Wagner Prelude of Tristan und Isolde, which was so sweet to my ears.

After upgrading Bifrost to Uberfrost seemed closely up to BDP-105.
However the BDP 105 shines when it plays CD or SACD. I heard the 1st time Kleiver's Beethoven sym.5 without grainy sound at the introduction.
All Mahlers are now sining now in far different level of SQ in comparison to Flac files through any other combination of machine.
It saves all my collection of CD and SACD, and hence provides far more value on them.

Another notable thing is that it saved my oppo DV980H which is now acting as another SACD transporter without degradation of SQ due to the versatility of digital connectivity through HDMI. It serves a media center for almost everything from computer and other sources.

Emotiva Mini-x + Oppo BDP-105 + He-5LE results in impressive sound quality, which is at least equal to Schiit Lyr with Telefunken + Uberfrost + He-5LE.
The Telefunken tube set cost alone exceeds an Emotiva.
The price of amp does not follow SQ.
However this test set-up does not necessarily mean that Emotiva mini-x is better than Lyr + telefunken.

I hooked The BDP to my windows machine through HDMI cable.

This pairing of Emotiva sounds like tube amp.
The speaker tabs are connected to female TRS jack, where two black output terminals are short-circuited.
Now volume is at 10:00, and I hear the same tuby sounds that made me happy when I first time bought Schiit Lyr a year ago.

It is very economic solution without big investment in Amplifier side.
There are so many positive reviews in this site with many machine configurations with Emotiva mini-x.

the device complements nicely Matrix mini DAC to support 192k signal through USB connection.
SQ is good, and when it is connected it instantly is recognized.
 
Housing is aluminum and strong. Power connection is made directly to AC without any hassles about the DC converting block.

Great for full-orchestral / choral and chamber music. Excellent for strings, woods, and choral music.
The phones have a good combination of tonal balance of HD650 but without grainy nature and the beauty of K702's string at its mid range, and textured bass without excess.
 
I heard the first time the beauty of Mahler 8th with real but amazing choral section with them.

In my opinion, this is as good as the unit of several times more expensive ones.
This is no way inferior to Matrix mini, other than smaller number interfaces to the audio source.
It is also driven by IPAD through USB powered hub.
 
The design is considerate, compact, and beautiful yet srong.

This wonderful headphone is simply underestimated due to the myterious belief system of audiophiles.
Price simply biases the listener, and human brain is simple an automata that is influenced by every factor especially the cost he or she paid.

It is really convienient and user freindly designed.
Pairing with Little dot MKVII+, the sound is amazing for classical music listening.
It drives reasonably DT990-600 ohm.
 
I have several audio sources, all of which are able to be connected to this many interfaces without swapping the connect each time.
The LED indicate is pleasing and shows how it is connected and operated.
 
Strong and heat dissipating aluminium case is very good for a long listening.

I didn't expect this little Chines guy to generate impressive sound.
When it is pairing with DT990 - 600 ohm, Cello concerto of Britten superised me of its crisp sound and wide soound stage with enough volume.
 
In comparison to many times expensive amp unit, I could not pinpoint its weakness against.
 
I think anyone cannot easily buy this performance per this price or many times more than this.
 
It is really a small wonder, it constantly reminds me of myths regarding to audiophiles' believe system.
Really an amp is fundamentally basic structure with this relatively small bandwidth of audio signal.
Problenm is naturally in resonance-uncontrallable headphone, not in amp.
This fact makes really a sense in the ultra low priced but wonderful amp.
 
Why do we spend a big money to a really in biased way?

I am using it in balanced mode, and the sound is amasing.
It has excellent sound stage, and enough resolution so that I can hear musical instrument well separated.
The bass is not very emphasized, and treble is enough extended to higher region.
 
The connection is very sturd, reliable, heat management through strong aluminium housing.
It keeps every virture of amp that sould provider a listner with.
 
This machine drives HE-400 wonderfully, and it drives HE-5LE decently in all balanced mode.
When it is compared with Emotiva mini-x fed by Matrix mini in balanced mode for He-400, the sound quality is equivalent or at least not bad with respect to classical music listening.
When it si compared with Emotiva mini for He-5le, the sound is not wider than with Emotiva.
 
When you listen the rite of Spring of Stravinsky to this amp and HE-400, you will know how wonderfully it delivers the sound.
However it has some trouble with HD 650 in classical music listening in comparison with HE-400.