[LarsHP]

Conductor obviously needs a power cleaner/conditioner.
 
When I turn on the lights from outlets/contacts near the Conductor, relays in the DAC makes a click and a short break in sound occurs (often, but not always). When I started an electric motor powered from the same outlet, the Conducted clicked and clicked and clicked until I turned the motor off.

 

[dan.gheorghe]

Quote:

Conductor obviously needs a power cleaner/conditioner.
 
When I turn on the lights from outlets/contacts near the Conductor, relays in the DAC makes a click and a short break in sound occurs (often, but not always). When I started an electric motor powered from the same outlet, the Conducted clicked and clicked and clicked until I turned the motor off.

I already wrote this on this thread so sorry for repeating myself but Burson specifically said a power conditioner would not be advised.

 

I do not think a power conditioner would do the job here. I am not an expert in this field but you may need a voltage regulator or something like that. Or maybe you went too hardcore on your electric system ) 
 
My experience with Conductor and PS Audio Duet Center power conditioner was not good. It really affected the sound in a bad way. More power filters / conditioners in series are only doing worse. Burson confirmed and told me that Conductor already has a five steps filtering system and another power conditioner would not be advised :
 
 

Burson Audio

 Yes, the conductor features a 5 stage filtering power supply. Therefore, we don’t recommend the use of external power conditioners. Thanks for your interest and your honest feedback

- Charlie

 

 
 
Read this on my thread here for more info, or on my blog here.
 
A power regenerator (as Ps Audio Power Plant x) would be better than a power conditioner, I think, but too expensive (imo) . Maybe a high end power conditioner would also be better and not affect the sound in a bad way.
 
I see people here that did not have any degradation with the sound with their power conditioners even if in theory they were inferior to the PS Audio Duet center.
 
All I am saying is that I had problems with it and the producer specifically told me that power conditioners aren't recommended with their product, so you should be suspicious and  test it yourself before buying a new power conditioner for it.
 
(Power Plants / regenerators are not power conditioners so they are good ... I think )

 

[LarsHP]

I remember your earlier post about power conditioner, but my experience tells me that there is an issue there.
In the user manual Burson actually recommends using a power conditioner ... !

 

[germay0653]

I have no problem with my conductor plugged directly into the wall outlet.  I'm not using any power conditioning or surge proctection and my power cord is only using hot and neutral.  I experience dead silence.  No noise whatsoever.

 

[vegan]

Lars - thanks for your feedback.
I am only using the pre-outs to a Burson PP-100 power amp.

Some brief listens through my old, cheap Sennheisser cans proved a very dull experience. I haven't made any effort to burn in the headphone amp, though.

Hopefully, the aggressive treble I'm getting will pass with more burn-in. (Fingers crossed!)

I am using a Blue Circle Sillycone x6 power conditioner. I have had a couple strange clicks - but very rare and may have been clicks from a vinyl rip, so not sure. I may well experiment by taking it out. I can't say the clicks have been an issue for me, at all.

I used to have a terrible buzz through the speakers with the HA-160D (even when ground was lifted). On low-gain, this has all but disappeared (but is just audible when attenuator is on max... and is louder on higher gain settings).

This may be partly why the noise floor seems so low - getting a much blacker background. Despite my treble woes, some things sound very, very good (eg a vinyl rip of Marianne Faithful's City of Quartz).

Luke

 

[LarsHP]

I should add, that the clicks I hear are mechanical clicks, and are often heard when not having headphones on. In other words it is not clicks in the audio signal. When a click happens, and I listen to music, I may hear a short pause in the audio signal / music, but not always.

 

[digiman]

I have just received a Conductor also. It sounds great out of the box, interested to hear how it improves.
 
I seem to get the clicks that interrupt music in the first 5 mins of use, and then it disappears. Is this normal operation?
 
Also my ASIO driver status is 'non-active' on win 7 64bit, is this how it should be?

 

[germay0653]

LarsHP,
 
I believe the mechanical click seem to be coming from the the USB interface trying to lock on the signal or the DAC switching sampling rates.  It must be an internal relay.
 
Digiman,
 
What player are you using?  You normally have to configure the player to use the ASIO driver.  If you're using JPLAY it requires a 64 bit ASIO driver and the one supplied from Burson (Tenor actually) is 32 bit.  One of those two reasons may be why it's indicating that it's not active.

 

[LarsHP]

I haven't used USB input at all. The clicks come also when changing from one sampling rate to another, which suggests that it is in the DAC section these sounds are made. These clicks are of course OK and supposed to be there, but not all the other times they occur.

 

[MDCLXVI]

The only times I hear the mechanical clicks are when I power on the Conductor and when I press the buttons to switch source/gain. This is using Toslink to connect to the source.

 

[LarsHP]

The only times I hear the mechanical clicks are when I power on the Conductor and when I press the buttons to switch source/gain. This is using Toslink to connect to the source.

No clicks when you change from 44,1kHz to 48kHz or 96kHz?

 

[MDCLXVI]

All of my music is at the same bitrate I believe (converted into Apple lossless) so I've not had the chance to test if the clicks happen there.

 

[LarsHP]

All of my music is at the same bitrate I believe (converted into Apple lossless) so I've not had the chance to test if the clicks happen there.

That is probably the reason then. I feel quite confident that the clicks when changing sample rate are supposed to be there, as well as when changing input. It's the clicks when lights are turned on or off etc. that are annoying.

 

[LarsHP]

Tomorrow I am sending the Conductor back to the shop, since the loan is over.
 
All in all, I think highly of the amp section of it, but unfortunately the DAC has some issues and the sound from the DAC is not to my liking even though it has a quite high level of clarity/purity. The emphasis on the treble is not dominant, but enough for me to look elsewhere. I already have the Soloist, and I am now going for a separate DAC to pair it with. At the moment Metrum Octave is on the radar, but it is about two years old, so I expect there will be a successor this year - so I am going to be patient.
 
Goodbye and good luck to you all.

 

[SoulFan84]

I received my Conductor unit tonight and I'm using it with my almost fully burned in HD800's. So far I am quite happy with it. Just to let future owners know, when I first turned the unit on it played a very jagged like noise. I stopped the song and replayed and it did the same thing. However third time was a charm.(It did this a couple of times later but has stopped) I also experienced very subtle popping noises too. However that has stopped also and I'm sure all of this is due to the new unit breaking in. Perhaps the noise I experienced is the reason Burson asks that the unit be set at minimal when you first play music through it. I'm using it with USB WIN764bit and I can already hear it improving.