[Dartin Bout]

What is the white notchy thing at the bottom that looks like something could be changed with a small screw driver?

 

[Jimmy24]

Edit: Sorry I thought you meant the case outside.

 

[Dartin Bout]

What does this do?

 

[raoultrifan]

You don't need to touch that potentiometer, unless you want to loose the warranty or to get your headphones to get defective due to the higher DC output.
I'm pretty sure it's the biasing pot.

 

[raoultrifan]

How do you remove the case on the V6? It doesn't fit with the caps (Whammy) besides the op amp. Also should I remove the 8 pin connector on the V6 if I already have one soldered to the board?

Usually you need to remove the DIP8 socket from bottom, hope this works for you.
Removing the outer shell will void your warranty, but it might be doable with bit of care; worth mentioning that you could damage the inside components.

 

[Jimmy24]

Thanks. I spoke with someone at Burson. They told me that if I already have a DIP8 I can remove the one on the V6.
I was hoping I could listen to it yesterday but I'm glad I didn't try to force it open. I'll have to wait for some new silmic caps to replace the old ones since the leads on that are too short to be bent out of the way. I just hope the holes don't get clogged up when I remove them which has always been the case with the Whammy PCB board.

 

[gaz2613]

How do you remove the case on the V6? It doesn't fit with the caps (Whammy) besides the op amp. Also should I remove the 8 pin connector on the V6 if I already have one soldered to the board?

You need one of these extenders my friend.

 

[gaz2613]

Burson OP Amp Thoughts and Impressions:

Okay guys, as some of you may know, I recently spent a considerable amount of time and money testing various dual OP Amps in the Whammy HPA.

This lead to Charles at Burson contacting me about my projects which has led us here. So before I begin, I would like to state that all the OP Amps I will be testing I paid full price for but the V6 Classics were kindly provided by Charles and all that was asked of me in return is that I provide an open and honest opinion of my experience.

With this in mind I hope to be able to provide an impartial comparison of the OP Amps I will be talking about in this review.



Okay lets get started!

So the test amps are the Whammy by Wayne Colburn and the NuHybrid by Pete Millett. Each amp will be fed from a Topping D50 DAC using audio sources either CD quality or higher using FLAC file format. The headphones I will be using on this occasion are the HiFiMan HE400i.

The audio tracks I will be using are:

Club/Trance Tracks:
Sergio Galoyan feat. Lena Katina - Paradise
Clark Owen feat. Lena Katina - Melody
Lena Katina - Never Forget
Yanou Presents Do - On and On (DJ's@Work Remix)
Deep Fog feat. Justine Divina - The Night Sky (Tranceye Remix)

Orchestral/Electronic:
Evaneascence - Synthesis Album


First Comparison: Whammy - V6 Vivid Dual vs V6 Classic Dual:



After testing various OP Amp IC chips I purchased the V6 Vivid Dual after reading some reviews from various parts of the internet. I primarily chose this OP Amp due to its discrete design to see how it would fair up.

The Whammy as you know is an ideal reference amp with its incredibly clean power supply so is the perfect platform for testing both of these OP Amps.

Initial impressions after listening to the above test tracks are that the Vivid is just that! Its very vivid and clean sounding, very balanced in the mids and treble with an incredibly wide soundstage. The vocals are upfront, sharp and you can hear every click and pop of Amy Lees mouth moving as she sings.

That said, I have had the Vivid in for a few weeks now and after switching to the Classic, I noticed a subtle but immediate difference. The sound was still very detailed like the Vivid and has the same wide soundstage but this time the vocals seemed like they were a bit softer and set back somewhat giving an emphasis on the instruments in the foreground. It has a kind of warm feeling and both are really enjoyable but the mids and treble seemed a little flatter on the Classic compared to the Vivid in this amp.

My overall favourite in the Whammy is the Vivid simply due to it being more balanced with a higher level of clarity without pushing the vocals back.


Second Comparison: NuHybrid - V5i Singles / V6 Classic Singles:



Okay so I dont have any V6 Vivid Singles to test but may get the chance to try some in the future so I will talk about the differences between the V5i and the V6 Classic.

Firstly after listening to the above tracks on the V5i I noticed an immediate improvement over the stock OPA551 OP Amps that I purchased as part of the original BOM list for this amp. The OPA551's sound really good already with that clean BB sound signature. As most of you may know the V5i is semi-discrete yet the detail in the sound is unbelievable. Nice wide sound stage, good mids and treble and a decent amount of bass. I thought there was not much room for improvement as it sounded incredibly good already.

Then I popped the V6 Classics in. Straight away, I noticed that warm sound with such fine detail and the softer vocals yet for some reason they sound better in this amp than they do in the Whammy. Maybe its due to the fact that the NuTube still being a tube although a modern one still produces that warm tubey sound so the V6 Classic complements this amp nicely. Also compared to the V5i the V6 Classic seemed slightly more detailed and fuller sound to me probably due to the fact that the V6 is fully discrete.

With that said, the OP Amp I prefer so far in the NuHybrid is definitely the V6 Classic so I have left them in for future listening to see how they sound over time as they burn in fully.

Closing Thoughts:

I would like to once again thank Charles at Burson Audio (@SS-Audio) for the chance to try the V6 Classics and I hope many of you found this comparison helpful.

I would like to end this review with a nice pic of Lena Katina who not only looks stunning, but her solo music since tATu has come a long way!

 

[Baten]

Wrote some comparisons to other opamps in my Burson V6 Classic (Duals) review

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/review/22695/

 

[cleg]

My video about V6 Vivid

 

[mikaelmark]

Yes, you should remove the second DIP8-socket at the new V6 because it will then be about 5mm lower and also the fewer connections and shorter signal distance the better!

When I removed the case at my V6. I had not planned to do it, it fell of by accident by pulling it too hard out of the PCB-socket. I suppose it´s glued to it´s own socket and maybe it´s possible to use some small force at the sides of the cover by using a plier.

 

[raoultrifan]

[...]
Second Comparison: NuHybrid - V5i Singles / V6 Classic Singles:



Okay so I dont have any V6 Vivid Singles to test but may get the chance to try some in the future so I will talk about the differences between the V5i and the V6 Classic.

Firstly after listening to the above tracks on the V5i I noticed an immediate improvement over the stock OPA551 OP Amps that I purchased as part of the original BOM list for this amp. The OPA551's sound really good already with that clean BB sound signature. As most of you may know the V5i is semi-discrete yet the detail in the sound is unbelievable. Nice wide sound stage, good mids and treble and a decent amount of bass. I thought there was not much room for improvement as it sounded incredibly good already.

Then I popped the V6 Classics in. Straight away, I noticed that warm sound with such fine detail and the softer vocals yet for some reason they sound better in this amp than they do in the Whammy. Maybe its due to the fact that the NuTube still being a tube although a modern one still produces that warm tubey sound so the V6 Classic complements this amp nicely. Also compared to the V5i the V6 Classic seemed slightly more detailed and fuller sound to me probably due to the fact that the V6 is fully discrete.

With that said, the OP Amp I prefer so far in the NuHybrid is definitely the V6 Classic so I have left them in for future listening to see how they sound over time as they burn in fully.
[...]

In NuHybrid the OPA551 opamps are used as output buffers connected directly to the 6.3mm headphones jack, while the tubes are used as gain stage. Usually, Burson SS opamps should be successfully used in input stage, gain stage, I/V, LPF or DAC output stages, not to headphone amplifiers output stages. For >300 Ohms headphones Burson SS opamps will most likely drive them well, but when using normal or low impedance headphones these opamps will struggle to keep up the current (mA) due to the low intensity output they were designed to operate. OPA551 has over 200mA/channel, while SS opamps have less than a fraction of this, so you might overheat these opamps, not mentioning the increased THD when increasing the volume.

Burson SS opamps were not designed to directly drive headphones, especially low-impedance ones! For this task you can use powerful unity gain opamps like: BUF634, LME49600, OPA551/552 or something similar.

http://www.pmillett.com/file_downloads/Nuhybrid_sch.pdf - take a look to Pete's schematic, I'm sure you'll figure out that these opamps were not intended to get swapped with regular opamps, but BUF634 or LME49600 might work as well (a scope might be needed).

 

[gaz2613]

In NuHybrid the OPA551 opamps are used as output buffers connected directly to the 6.3mm headphones jack, while the tubes are used as gain stage. Usually, Burson SS opamps should be successfully used in input stage, gain stage, I/V, LPF or DAC output stages, not to headphone amplifiers output stages. For >300 Ohms headphones Burson SS opamps will most likely drive them well, but when using normal or low impedance headphones these opamps will struggle to keep up the current (mA) due to the low intensity output they were designed to operate. OPA551 has over 200mA/channel, while SS opamps have less than a fraction of this, so you might overheat these opamps, not mentioning the increased THD when increasing the volume.

Burson SS opamps were not designed to directly drive headphones, especially low-impedance ones! For this task you can use powerful unity gain opamps like: BUF634, LME49600, OPA551/552 or something similar.

http://www.pmillett.com/file_downloads/Nuhybrid_sch.pdf - take a look to Pete's schematic, I'm sure you'll figure out that these opamps were not intended to get swapped with regular opamps, but BUF634 or LME49600 might work as well (a scope might be needed).

I will check out those OP Amps for the NuHybrid, thank you. As for the V6, I checked whether they would get hot or not as I noticed the Bursons got quite toasty in the Whammy but in the NuHybrid they get a little warm but that's it. I was really surprised.

 

[raoultrifan]

[...]As for the V6, I checked whether they would get hot or not as I noticed the Bursons got quite toasty in the Whammy but in the NuHybrid they get a little warm but that's it. I was really surprised.

Perhaps because the voltage inside your Whammy is +/-18V or +/-21.5V. Might worth measuring the voltage rails or let us know if you do have the 390 Ohms resistors or the LEDs installed.

 

[gaz2613]

Perhaps because the voltage inside your Whammy is +/-18V or +/-21.5V. Might worth measuring the voltage rails or let us know if you do have the 390 Ohms resistors or the LEDs installed.

I have the LED voltage reference installed. I used Green ones at 1.9v which gave me a rail voltage of +/- 16.95v when I was building it.