A few days ago, I did a comparison for JRC NE5534, Burson V6 Vivid Classic and a Sparko SS3602 installed in a Burson Fun headphone amp, every A/B-test were done with a DIY stereo switch for instantly swapping between the simultaneously powered amps and compairing with my own DIY assembled LBC amp with a V6 Vivid and Sparko discrete voltage regulators SS7815 and SS1117-15, that will replace the original LM317 and LM337. Those discrete voltage regs will really give the amp a steady and clean power voltage with very low noisefloor and a black background.

Before the test, every OpAmp were burned in with pink/white noise and sinus waves for several hours. The test were made with a pair of Sennheiser HD 800 connected with the DIY A/B-switch to both amps simultaneously powered and listening to some CD´s, for example Ani DiFranco and Laura Pausini from 2006 - playing in my Arcam CD192 CD-player. Here are my verdict:


The standard NE5534 was dull sounding with some treble roll off and not as clear and open as all the other OpAmps.

The difference between Burson V6 Vivid and Classic was the smallest between all tested and not as big as many people stated, that the Vivid should be more open with a bigger sound stage and the Classic should be warmer and closer To me, it was almost not hearable.

The Sparkos SS3602 had more treble and sparkle to the sound and maybe the sound was also more open than all the other tested.

When compairing the Burson Fun with my DIY amp with SS7815 and SS1117-15, the later had a noticeable more open sound, and i believe much of that is due to the discretes.

You will not be disappointed with any of this discretes, and also the discrete voltage regulators will improve the sound to a completely different level!

I´m aware there are at least one more discrete in the market; the NewClassD (confusingly working in Class A, and that I intend to review shortly). The SS3601 and SS3602 will cost about 10$ more than V6, and I think this small difference are fair if you like the sound from the SparkoS!
Whatever of the discrete OpAmps you choose, it will give you big step upwards for the sound, and I believe it´s mostly equipment synergy and personal tastes that will make you decide who will be your next buy, and all them gonna make you satisfied!

Finally, I really want to thank Andrew at SparkoS, as he equipped me with the discretes and made this test possible!

First of all, I want to say thank´s to Charles at Burson Audio, as he gave me the opportunity to do this listening test with their headphone amp; Fun!

My first impression when unwrapping the box, is that the amp are quite well packed in the original retail black box, with some white foam and also a thick rubber foam surrounding it. At the side of it, there are two boxes; one containing the power adapter and the other contains a 2,5 mm Hex-key to be used when opening the lid of the amp, a power cable for the power adapter, a small gold plated resistor or capacitor for surface mounting (that I have not yet know the purpose for) and an short RCA-cable from Pailicc of a much better grade than usually includes with most other equipment, especially the connector´s! Most other manufacturer´s tend to include those familiar and very thin "licorice laces", that either get´s placed among all other scrap cabel´s in a box on the shelf of being throwed away immediately! Those Pailicc´s can be used withoud any bad conscience.

This amp are also equipped with a new developed power stage, using no transformer for maximum power and minimal noise.

There are three available options of the Fun; the Basic model that I´m gonna test are the cheapest, implementing a pair of NE5543 Opamp´s. The other options is get with Burson´s quite new and well regarded V6 Vivid or V6 Classic discrete Opamp´s.

What I first realized, was the lack of grounding as the amp´s power adapter are ungrounded. Also, there amp has no 100 Ohm resistor between the enclosure and the signal path´s ground (that many other amp´s have to avoid any EMI/EMR to reach the signal and bring noise to the sound). But they are not alone with this solution, as many manufacturer´s do the same, and honestly, I´m not sure how much this grounding filter solutions will do for the sound.

I did a A/B comparison test against my own assembled DIY headphone amp, that are using V6 Vivid dual, a Dale 24 stepped volume attenuator and Mundorf/Russian Teflon´s (as it´s built by me, it´s not easy to tell a retail price for it, but similar models will cost about four times the Fun Basic). For the source, I used a Cambridge CD192 CD-player that has two analog RCA-out, with upsamling module and modded with THS4032 OpAmp´s (had a retail price new about $1400) and listened to both my Sennheiser HD595 and HD800. After I calibrated the volume to a similar level for the amp´s, I used my DIY A/B-testing unit to switch between them, as the unit that gonna compare, should not be connected to the Fun´s pre-out, otherwise the sound will be limited by the Fun (or vice versa, if connecting the Fun to the other amp). Each amp must be directly connected to the source, and the A/B-tester will to this without the need to connecting and disconnecting each time.

The first thing I noticed when listening to the Fun, whas that I must admit there were many similarities between the two amp´s, but what I rather quickly distinguished, was the rolled off treble for the Fun, as there were much more open sound from my DIY-amp, the sound from the Fun was much more veiled. The bass was quite good, and the mid also mostly nice, but no up the grade the DIY-amp, that had a more open and well defined sound.

Of course, it´s not really fair to compare the Fun against an amp with Burson´s own V6; their latest generation of discrete Opamp´s, altough both amp´s consists of part´s at a really high grade! But having in mind this Fun are the Basic version, with a pair of NE5543 Opamp´s, I must nevertheless admit the sound are quite good compairing to the rival´s, for the price and size of the amp!

Update:

A few days ago, I also did a comparison for JRC NE5534, Burson V6 Vivid and also did a quick comparison to the Classic and a SparkoS SS3602 installed in my Burson Fun headphone amp, every A/B-test were done with the DIY stereo switch for instantly swapping between the simultaneously powered amps and compairing with my own DIY assembled LBC amp with a V6 Vivid and Sparko discrete voltage regulators SS7815 and SS1117-15, that will replace the original LM317 and LM337. Those discrete voltage regs will give the amp a steady and clean power voltage with very low noise and a black background.

Before the test, every OpAmp were burned in with pink/white noise and sinus waves for several hours. The test were again made with my Sennheiser HD 800 connected with the DIY A/B-switch to both amps simultaneously powered and listening to some CD´s, for example Ani DiFranco and Laura Pausini from 2006 - playing in my Arcam CD192 CD-player. Here are my conclusion:


As I already stated, the standard NE5534 are dull sounding some treble roll off and not as clear and open as all the other OpAmps. It´s not bad, but more in the same range as the OPA2134.

The difference between Burson V6 Vivid and Classic were the smallest between all tested and not as big as many people stated, that the Vivid should be more open with a bigger sound stage and the Classic should be warmer and closer. But their sound are in a totally other league, definitely a wider sound stage and more details. One thing also worth to be noticed, are the included gold plated DIP8-adapter, that can be leaved fitted at those dicretes and soldered to the PCB if you decide, as they are of very high grade while SparkoS adapter socket should only be used as PIN protection and are recommended to be removed before installing due to their low quality.

The SS3602 had more treble than the all the other.

And when I compaired both amps with V6 Vivid for both, the DIY amp had a more open sound with a wider sound stage. But have in mind that I have paid a bit more for the DIY amp in component cost than the Burson Fun, that will cost $399 with V6´s. One more thing I noticed, was the extreme power/gain for the Fun, as the volume knob were at bearly 9´clock, while the DIY were at almost 12´clock, when calibrated equally with noise. So, the Fun amp is definitely a winner for it´s retail price, and combined with the V6 it´s remarkable good!

Beside for the Fun amp, I´ve used the V6 Vivid in a AK4490 DAC, also with amazingly good result!

My DIY amp were connected to the CD-player with a Van Damme Twin Interconnect, while I choosed the original bundle Pailiccs for the Fun. I also tried the Fun with a thick high grade silver plated OFC Interconnect, without any noticeable improvements. Therefore, I will praise the bundle Pailiccs quite high, altough I soldered the cables screen to the connectors for best connection. Have in mind that most other equipments bundle cables are of a very low quality that should be avoided to use for HiFi!

My verdict are that the Burson Fun have a very affordable price, compared to most other amps (for example; the Grado RA1 have a price, while having a very simple schematic, base on the Pimeta that can be done as a coffe break DIY-project), and will give a sound that will satisfy most people, and beat most of it´s competitors - especially if you choose a discrete OpAmp, regardless model - but have in mind that the V6 costs about 10$ less than SparkoS!