[emike]

Hi guys,
Just wanted to share my initial impressions with this gear. I bought it to replace my Jotunheim 2 and unfortunately...
..this equipment has some unacceptable quirks.

First when I saw that over 1k$ equipment has a cheapo 10$ Chinese AC adapter.. Well... I have a power cord worth more than the Burson.. so why bother?

Then the quirks came:
-audible pops in headphones when turning the amp on/off even in volume set to 0
-very audible pops when doing anything in the menu eg changing Gain
-audible buzz, in all headphones no matter planars or dynamics no matter via XLR or SE output (I have checked and it has something to do with XLR connection with DAC while DAC is not connected by chinch to anything... strange)
-the buzz is going crazy loud when volume knob 50 in High gain (but see above and also increases when other gear is turned on)
-there is also an audible hiss but the funny thing is that it is present in some volume ranges, appears and disappears
-turning volume up/down takes ages, and when using remote it stops sometimes every 10/20 steps, so need to push the button again

Yes, it sounds better than Schiit, the sound is more sweet, smooth and holographic in short.

But there are no pops in Schiit meaning they could implement basic safety measures to protect headphones in much cheaper gear.

I am wondering whether these constant pops are healthy to headphones' drivers and considering returning the Burson

Any opinions on that?
thanks
Mike

 

[hotKarl]

Did you ever find an answer to these issues? Was considering to get this amp but maybe not after reading this.

 

[emike]

Not really, but perhaps they solved it in newer models. I returned it, also tried Reference later but it was getting very hot which was quite annoying and returned it as well.

 

[Fhjull]

Well, from what I've heard, the popping sound is to be expected, but should be safe for your headphones (although I remember some instances where folks complaining about Soloist blowing their headphones. Most likely some broken op amps had something to do with it, but just to be safe I don't switch it on/off with my headphones in). As for the 'buzz sound' I experienced this only on high gain with sensitive headhpones, so I'd think it's pretty normal for a powerful A class amplifier. In your case it could've been just a faulty unit. Running hot is also expected from a class A device, so nothing unusual there. After couple of years of usage, the only real quirks I can think of are: volume knob which is not linear around 50 and bad handling of higher voltage DACs (although I may be mistaken here, I'm not 100% on this). Other than that, I think it's quite good sounding amp I'll propably keep for couple of years more.