This review is going to be updated once I receive a balanced cable and use this amp in balanced operation. I figured this amp needed a proper review on here, and there is a lot of good stuff to say that does not require me to hear it balanced. once I do though, I will add it to here.
 
Edit: finally got a balanced cable, will add balanced usage impressions/review at the very end.
 
So I bought this amp as an end game amp that will last many years and be able to power anything I could potentially buy in the future/currently own. It needed to sound amazing, be solid state, have plenty of power for planars, and be built super tough. This amp fits that criteria better than I could have even imagined an amp would. Its built like a tank, and I really do mean that. it weighs around 13 pounds, is built out of aluminum, and every button/knob is just firmly in place (with the one exception of the very large volume knob which can come loose in shipping, but they give you an allen key to retighten the knob and then its rock solid forever after that). This is amp has both balanced and single ended inputs and outputs, has pre-amp/line outputs, can have a dac put inside it, and drive 3 headphones connected to it at once without issue. The pre-gain dip switches on the back make for fantastic adjustment of volume for harder to drive headphones without inducing any kind of noise.
 
It can pretty much connect and power anything you can think of in regards to headphones and associated equipment.
 
So how does it sound? Well honestly it sounds like nothing. Sure it has smoothness, resolution, a bit of fullness, and is definitely not bright or thin, but in general this amp does not really have its own sound signature that it imparts on the sound. Its neutral and transparent in the sense that it makes audio sound unfiltered, whatever comes out of the dac is what you hear come out of the amp. It doesnt add brightness, or warmth, no sibilance or thickness, it doesnt add or take away anything. It really is neutral in the fullest definition, with like the slightest bit of extra fullness and smoothness to the sound that ensures anything playing through it will sound its best. Otherwise it literally sounds like nothing, there is overall tone to this amp, it just sounds like whatever you're playing through it.
 
This is the biggest point I want to make. This amp simply works. Like it just does exactly what you want it to do. It powers every headphone regardless of sensitivity or impedance, it has a completely black background no matter what, and just easily plays whatever you feed to it. It gets out of the way and makes sound played through it, be its very best. Thats why this an endgame amp to me, it doesnt even remotely make you feel like something could be missing, or done better, or differently. Everything with amp is just done in the best way it could, and in generally some of the simplest and most straightforward. With this amp you can absolutely feel confident that when you buy it, you will like the sound it makes and not have any synergy issues.
 
There are volume control upgrades, and such but thats only if you have the extra money to spend. It already comes standard with an amazing volume pot, two of them actually because this amp also has a balance control knob. Also inside this amp are essentially two improved V200 boards stacked on top of each other to achieve balanced operation. The V220 just has the bottom board. You literally have two 1000 dollar amps inside one chassis for less than 2000 dollars. and that has many more features.
 
Theres tiny specifics other people may mention they hear, which is all fine, but I just want to really drive home the message that this amp will do its job, and do it with absolute precision and correctness, for a very long time, and with great ease. As of right now there are really only two other popular amps in this price range (auralic taurus mkII and schiit ragnarok). I'm sure those amps are also great, and I think they each have their own unique traits that some people may want specifically, but if you're like me and just want an end game amp that can do everything and be a master of it all, (except for powering speakers like the ragnarok) then the V281 is the best choice to go with it. I have yet to see anybody say they dont like it, and I hear why. At the very least you wont be feeling any buyers remorse or upgraditis if you get this amp, not until Violectric makes something better 2-4 years from now. Its just really good.product.
 
And if you buy from the USA store you get the pleasure of dealing with Arthur. Who is the nicest guy to do business with ever. He will personally make sure everything goes well for you, and responds within a couple hours almost anytime of the day or week. He told me I was the first person in North America to own a V281, which is why I felt I should be the first to write a review on here too.
 
 
If you have any specific questions about something I did not mention, please leave a comment or PM me and I'll try to answer it as best I can.
 
 
So it has been a few months now, and i finally got a balanced cable to use with the amp. And honestly to be brief about it, this is how the amp should be used. Immediately I noticed better cohesiveness in the sound, better air and separation, overall a more rock solid detailed sound. There is also twice the output power and it's very obvious even on my harder to drive headphones. I think a better way to word this, is to look at the engineering itself. There are two whole single ended amps stacked on top of each other inside the unit. One is producing an in-phase signal, the other a 180 degree phase signal. each amp outputs to one single ended 1/4 in. jack. So when you listen to the single ended jacks, it sounds like listening to one full single ended amp. when you listen to this balanced, it sounds exactly what you would think having two full amps combined in unison to sound like. it just sounds more whole. Again these aren't major improvements or anything, but it changes enough to definitely prefer one over the other. I think in general too going from what the other owners have said, that going balanced is the preferred connection, aside from a few specific headphones. All in all, get this amp only if you intend to use it balanced, or need both single ended and balanced connections, otherwise if you dont have balanced connections now, and dont plan on it in the near future, and want to save a few hundred bucks, just get the V220 instead. but if balanced is your thing, and having the flexibility to use any headphone, with any major connection type, then the V281 is right for you.
 
Also as another update in regards to how it holds up so far after a few months, the amp has been running flawlessly. there is no burn in at all as far as I can tell, there is no warm up period, there is no break in, literally aside from a little dust here and there, you would never be able to tell this has been in daily use for many months, it might as well be fresh out of the box. So still built like a tank. Also I've thrown multiple types of headphones at it, of varying impedances, and sensitivities, and no matter what the amp just runs them as if it was built specifically for that headphone. This is definitely the do it all amp. Getting anything more expensive than this, or in general anything other than this, would be purely for personal taste reasons, if you wanted a specific kind of sound from a different amp, or you like tubes
 
So thats it for now, I dont think I'll be updating this anytime soon, probably if something happens, and if not, then just some much later date to really show off the longevity of the amp.
 
Thank you for reading, and I hope this amp brings anyone who owns it many years of beautiful sounds

I don't want to ramble too much in this review, but I want to give a slightly counter perspective to the majority of reviews for the soloist sl. I used it with a schiit bifrost uber using the usb input, and with my audeze lcd 2 headphones as well as my denon d5000 headphones.
 
So the first couple days of use the sound was great, basically sounded just like most of the good reviews it has gotten. If you want to know what that sound is like then just read those other reviews because I want to speak about what happened after a couple days. Starting on the third day of use (and by third day I really do mean like 24+ hours of total use by that point) the sound started to lose a little edge, and little liveliness, a little grip. I gave it a few more days, tried every usb port, tried the optical port, switched headphones, used different songs/media players, but the sound remained consistent. It was subtle at first, but it just felt like your brain was having a hard time trying to latch onto the music, if that makes sense? the edge was gone, it always felt like something was missing in the sound, as if it was blurred over slightly or dulled. The bass was still great, the mids were still great, and the treble was still properly detailed, but as a whole the tone seemed to just dull the edges too much, which made the sound feel much less dynamic than it should, and after a while it just hurt my brain because it was being teased with details that just would not appear. The final straw for me to sell it though was the fact that it just did not provide enough power for the lcd 2 (the late 2013 pre-fazor version). Even on high gain I had to put the volume around 2 o'clock to hear the whole frequency range properly, but it always ended up being too loud after a while, but sounding as if it was too quiet. Like it would be too loud for your ears, but you kept making it louder because it seemed like it was missing aspects of the sound. Like the bass was good, but it obviously felt like it needed more power behind it, and the mids were great, that never seemed wrong, and the treble just sounded dull and lacked some detail. It just felt like if there was a bit more power, then I could keep the volume lower while having the sound be properly filled out. Compared to the soloist sl where it definitely felt like it was struggling to get the lcd 2 sounding right. With my denon's it had the proper amount of power, since they are very sensitive headphones, but that dulled sound made the denons pretty bad in the mids. See the denon d5000 already has a slight v curve frequency response, but the burson just made that v-curve even more v shaped. bass was stronger and tighter, treble was brighter, but the mids were too recessed. The lcd 2 sounded a bit better simply because it has a much more linear frequency response to this slight mid recession doesn't impact them nearly as much, but the dulled sound definitely does. On top of all this, the neutral/natural tone of the soloist sl just makes the dulled sound even worse because now it was lacking solidity and fullness, just brighter and dulled. it's a strange combination, but that's its sound signature no matter what you plug them into, or plug into them. Some people like that sound signature, their ears just enjoy that kind of thing, but for me I just really did not like it at all. I am looking at the violectric amps as my choice instead. Also to give some proper information about the soloist sl out there about its power output, it puts out about 650mW into 50 ohms. The 2 watt rating they advertise so much is only at 16 ohms, even my denons which are at 25 ohms only get close to a watt if using high gain, which is a lot for them, but 650 mW for the lcd 2 is only just barely enough to make them listenable and sound good, but very quickly you will feel like it just isn't enough.
 
So I will advise to definitely listen to a burson product first before you buy, this is not a company that makes products that you can safely buy blindly and enjoy. On youtube there is a guy whose channel name is headphoneaddictdotcom and he also agrees with me on this burson sound signature annoyance when he used a burson conductor for a few months. He also preferred violectric amps or just something more along those lines of sound signature. I have similar tastes to him, as in we like the audeze house sound, pre-fazors, denon dxxxx line, fuller and thicker sounding amps, neutral dacs, etc. If you feel you have a similar taste preference to this, then you might not enjoy the burson products in general. I just don't see that many negative reviews for their stuff, and thats why I originally bought the sl, and was very disappointed as I mentioned above, and just wanted to make sure people have all sides available to them before buying.

I bought this amp as my very first ever headphone amp. I bought it for my Denon AH-D5000 at the time, because even though it is very sensitive and effeiciant, my laptops audio jack still is incapable of outputting proper volume or impact (the internal amp chip must literally be putting out less than 1mW for this to be happening lol). So the E11 became the very first amp I got to hear as a reference point to what amps should sound like. Initially I was quite impressed by the sound, it was loud, the bass was super impactful on my Denons, and overall it felt like I was actually hearing my headphones in the proper way they were meant to be heard. That is until I started comparing the sound quality to my headphones plugged directly into the computer. See at this time I didnt yet have a dac, so whatever the E11 was plugged into was the dac (either my laptop, or my ipod classic). So I was very familiar with what the sound signature is supposed to be with both of my sources. The problem is that after going back and forth between my computer and E11 a few times, I noticed the E11 had a pretty noticeable drop in soundstage size. It was enough of a drop that it actually was becoming unpleasant to listen to music. It felt like the soundstage was a lot smaller than what the headphones were capable of doing (and its not like my headphones are the best at large soundstage to begin with, being closed back, and I wasn't using an external dac). Then when I used the E11 with my ipod I noticed the other major sound quality issue. It made the treble become a bit too sibilant on many more recordings than it should have. I use all lossless, and relatively well mastered music, plus I was familiar with how they sounded playing out of my laptop. So albums that normally sounded just fine, no sibilance at all, just maybe a slight brightness under normal conditions (out of the laptop) now sounded terribly sibilant to the point of being painful to listen. It didnt help that the ipod classic itself is slightly bright sounding, and that the Denons can be a tiny tiny bit too bright in the treble sometimes (usually its not thought, just sharp, but still enjoyable). So after a few weeks to a month of use, I just gave up on using it, because my laptop simply had the superior sound quality, even if it was less powerful and more quiet. I just couldn't enjoy music played through the E11.

Now there are some good aspects of it, and this is why I say It's a decent starter amp. The bass is really nice, pretty tight, lots of impact, and rumble. It has little distortion overall, and the EQ settings as well as the gain settings all work nicely, although I just preferred using it in the default settings, meaning everything on 0 EQ and low gain. Also the volume knob has a nice feel to it, and is pretty good at getting a nice volume level. Also the battery lasts for a very long time. If you only listen for a few hours everyday, then you can easily get a good 2-3 days out of the E11 before actually needing a recharge, but keeping it charged everyday is always useful.

Overall I'd say you pretty much get exactly what you pay for in that price range. Also I don't think the numbers for its output power are correct, because I was able to max out the volume knob with my 25ohm/116dB(around there) headphones without ever really feeling like this was too loud to keep them on my ears. Sure it was super loud and definitely not something you could listen to, but as a drummer I know what 110-130dB of volume sounds and feels like. This amp was not making my super effecient headphones reach those levels very easily. So I'm sure it could drive slightly harder to drive headphones, but I can't say it will do a good job of it in terms of volume. In terms of dynamics and being able to 'control' the drivers of a headphone, that it does pretty well. So I guess if you dont care/dont notice the small soundstage, slight sibilance, hiss, and ok output power, then this makes a pretty good buy for its price. Otherwise I would seriously just save up for something better, once you hit the $100 mark I'm sure theres plenty of much better amps. I bought this amp because of so many good reviews on its sound quality, and im writing this one because I want people to be aware of the potential disappointment this amp can bring if you have never heard or bought a headphone amp before. None of the many other reviews mention these same problems, but they are there.