Congrats for this thorough review. In my humble opinion, the best I've seen so far for the Soloist 3XP.
The technical information is something I was missing and you certainly delivered!
I just have a doubt regarding the specs. Burson claims the output power for, say, 300 ohm, is 150 mW SE and 300 mW in balanced. But your measurements show higher power than that. Almost, if I'm not mistaken, 4 times as much.
For example, I could expect the Soloist 3XP to deliver over 600 mW to a HD650 before clipping. Well, I'd burn the headphones before that! But you know what I mean.
How is it that Burson specs don't show those same measurements?

Great review. It's impressive that the soloist is so small compared to the conductor. I haven't seen them side by side before. Not that the conductor is big. It will be really interesting to see how the composer + soloist sound compared to the conductor. I don't expect a big difference but still interesting. Your valve like comment matches my findings. My conductor 3x ended up being a better preamp than my musical fidelity nuvista that has the legendary metal nuvistor valves from the 40's i think. The MF doesn't have a headphone socket or tone or balance controls. It is beautiful and a collectors item #276 of 500 but i think I'm going to sell it the burson is so good.

@ishmaelk, Burson guys were always very conservative when publishing the specs for their products. I personally found a better THD and higher output power than spec'd on their website.

After looking at passion for sounds soloist review the passion for sounds chord m scaler review blew my mind. My cambridge audio 840c CD/DAC upscales too i think but not as much but it's a beautiful player. Raoul if you could get your hands on an m scaler for a 2nd opinion review that would be great

The Cambridge 840c is incredibly detailed. It has a fully balanced layout, twin Analog Devices AD1955 24 bit DACs, true balanced XLR outs, use of DSP processing to up-convert the signal to 24bit/384kHz. The detail it extracts is amazing and it handles complex layered music so well and has an awesome soundstage. It is a few years old now but the technology is impressive and was regarded as best in class by more than one reviewer. I had been tempted to upgrade it with burson op amps and low jitter clock but never got around to it. I'm wondering if i could get some way towards a m scaler that way......

Very nice review. I'm tempted. I'm running my Mytek Brooklyn direct into amp and find the sound a bit thin. I've read that a preamp can make the sound richer. This unit is a good fit for me because balanced in and out and small size (need no bigger than half rack format). I'm happy with headphone performance so really looking for the preamp function, but also would interesting to see if this unit would best the headphone amp of the Mytek. .

@Fried dr, I think it has couple of TPA6120 chips inside, so it should be very low noise and good sounding for cans >32 Ohms (see inside pics here: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/myt...tan-brooklyn-dsd-192dac-stereo-96-dac.845641/). Probably for power hungry planars a transistorized output stage might have slight of advantage, but for most circumstances the TPA6120 chip is very competent.

Oh btw great review raoul

Great review, thanks a lot.
Just one question: did you swap the opamps in one of the Conductors 3XR for the NJM5532D, or was it some kind of the pre-production unit?

Thanks Bobby! Yes, I swapped several opamps inside (OPA1612, OPA1652, OPA1632, JRC5532D etc.). From a measurement perspective, I haven't found any differences, although my ears couldn't spot the V6 Vivid from the 5532, but I'll retry with more songs and see if something will change.

Thank you for the quick reply!

I have the Soloist in my system for a week now driving my LCD-3 with my Cosmic cable silver cable with XLR & it is sublime. I previously had the Burson CV2 & the Soloist is a significant step up, just cannot stop listening, really shows what the LCD-3 is capable of when given this sort of power. I had auditioned the Chord Hugo TT2 which was fantastic but I prefer the Soloist/Qutest combination. Sacrifices a little of the TT,s DAC detail & insight but to my ears is more coherent overall. I rate the Soloist amp ahead of the TT's amp. Maybe the TT Dac with the Soloist would be even better but a step too far fro my budget.

Great write up. Now considering these for my Verite Closed. Damn you

I have now had my amp a few weeks & it has improved further, I couldn't be happier, it does everything right, just sounds very natural with no obvious faults. familiar recordings sound significantly better, taking me right to the heart of the music. Completely addicted to it & allows me to forget I am wearing headphones, music just seems to exist around my head.

Just added the new Burson Supercharger to the Soloist, definitely recommend this, not a night & day difference but a cost effective upgrade, same sound just more clarity across the board, once used it would be hard to go back to the standard power supply. I was considering upgrading my LCD-3 until I got this amp, having added the new style ear pads also I currently have no desire to contemplate a change of headphones, unless a pair of Verite come along at a decent price.

Thanks for the such a detailed review man!! Appreciate it.
I just wanna know if this is will be good for single ended headphones as well.
I see the voltage being cut down to half in single ended out....so does that mean the current goes down by half as well?

In single-ended mode the power will indeed be lower, which is normal on any amplifier.

Great review, thanks. I have a Soloist, it outperforms amp double the price.