[beyerdude]

Jerick70.......wow. Thank you for taking the time for that thorough evaluation! Much appreciated.

Over the years I've had four Metrums.....Octave, Hex, Mussette and very briefly, the Amethyst. So I do miss the R2R sound, but frankly, digital through the Burson is perfectly fine for now (not to mention its convenience).

I'm glad to see you had such favorable results with the Burson driving the Atticus. You clearly know what you're doing and your evaluation was very descriptive. You've eased my concerns quite a bit.

Thanks again for taking the time.

I had the Metrum Hex, Metrum Aurix and WA6SE - the Hex was a lovely piece of kit but cost as much as my v2+ and Timekeeper Virtuoso combined Yes the Hex and WA 6SE exceeded the SQ of the V2+ but it sucked when it came to driving the HE500/PM in general, it hummed at a low level so ruined the dynamics of some music and I needed to swap tubes depending on which headphones I chose to wear - It also took a lot more desk realestate. I think I spent more time tube rolling/hunting for elusive tubes than I did listening to music. I had the preamp upgrade on the WA6SE but quite frankly the pre out on the v2+ easily exceeds the sq. The Aurix/Hex was a compelling combo for the HD800 but not convincing to me with other headphones. Overall the v2+ is a much simpler combo hence why I love it and musically don't feel the poorer at all.

 

[jerick70]

Jerick70...just to be clear, you said the Conductor with the MHDT and Atticus is your most favorite pairing you have. So you prefer the v2+ driving the Atticus over the Woo? Or did I misunderstand that first sentence? The Burson is in pretty distinguished company when compared with the WA5. That's impressive.

I had a WA2 driving an HD800 years ago and it was a great combo, FWIW.

Hi @devilboy. I should have been more clear. What I was trying to say is out of all the DACs, that I have, paired with the Burson, I liked the MHDT the best. The Sabre glare wasn't there. The music had more body. There was more fine detail.

Now to the Woo WA5.
1)It is honestly in another league than the V2+. The WA5 is a couple steps up.
2)The WA5 detail is incredible, think microscope.
3)With the WA5, there is more grandeur with large instrument arrangements.
4)With the WA5 the control of the music is rock solid.
5)Again I prefer my R2R DAC with the WA5. I listened with the Bursons' Sabre DAC through the DAC out also.

Unfortunately I only have digital sources right now. So a comparison with a turn table, CD transport, ect isn't possible.

 

[jerick70]

I had the Metrum Hex, Metrum Aurix and WA6SE - the Hex was a lovely piece of kit but cost as much as my v2+ and Timekeeper Virtuoso combined Yes the Hex and WA 6SE exceeded the SQ of the V2+ but it sucked when it came to driving the HE500/PM in general, it hummed at a low level so ruined the dynamics of some music and I needed to swap tubes depending on which headphones I chose to wear - It also took a lot more desk realestate. I think I spent more time tube rolling/hunting for elusive tubes than I did listening to music. I had the preamp upgrade on the WA6SE but quite frankly the pre out on the v2+ easily exceeds the sq. The Aurix/Hex was a compelling combo for the HD800 but not convincing to me with other headphones. Overall the v2+ is a much simpler combo hence why I love it and musically don't feel the poorer at all.

I haven't tried any of the Metrum DACs. I've heard that they are amazing. But the cost is out there...

I don't have any of those problems with the WA5, unless I have bad tubes. That's not saying you had bad tubes with your WA6. I think the WA5 is the best head amp I've heard to date. And Woo's house sound is very enjoyable, not what you would expected from a tube amp. Similar to SS, great control, precise, slam, fast, but with that tubby goodness to make the music sing!

 

[jerick70]

I love female vocals like diana krall, katie melua, etc

Female vocals are my thing too. The Burson had an excellent showing with all of the female vocals I listened to. I especially liked Shelby Lynne's, Just a Little Lovin'. The feel and the pace are perfect with the V2+ and the Atticus. As I said it captures that romantic feel very well. The percussion in this song is fun too. The tap of the drum stick on the rim of the snare drum has nice reverberation. The Atticus does percussion very well.

 

[beyerdude]

I haven't tried any of the Metrum DACs. I've heard that they are amazing. But the cost is out there...

I don't have any of those problems with the WA5, unless I have bad tubes. That's not saying you had bad tubes with your WA6. I think the WA5 is the best head amp I've heard to date. And Woo's house sound is very enjoyable, not what you would expected from a tube amp. Similar to SS, great control, precise, slam, fast, but with that tubby goodness to make the music sing!

I had about 15-20 different tubes + about 5 different recifiers - all high quality/Japanese/US made - basically multiples of every type in about 3 makes - don't think it was the tubes - admittedly the Milspec Siemens rectifiers ran the quietest - there is no question that the WA6-SE is a superb amp - I just think it wasn't exceptional for any PM headphones - it was amazing for the HD-800 but I also had the HE-6/HE-500 at the time and it struggled with the he-6 (as it would) and was not that dynamic sounding with the HE-500. I reckon if you are staying with the higher impedance 300ohm headphones then OTL is always going to yield a great result - the WA5 was my dream amp at the time but couldn't justify the additional expense. I loved my WA-6SE but I have to admit the low hum did bug me when I was listening to headphones close to the amp at low levels - undervolting it (ran an autotransformer) to run on 220-225v not 240-250v made a big improvement - I'm convinced the wide voltage specs they run on is not good for them as essentially my supply (around 250v on some days) did cause a lower level hum.

 

[beyerdude]

I haven't tried any of the Metrum DACs. I've heard that they are amazing. But the cost is out there...

I don't have any of those problems with the WA5, unless I have bad tubes. That's not saying you had bad tubes with your WA6. I think the WA5 is the best head amp I've heard to date. And Woo's house sound is very enjoyable, not what you would expected from a tube amp. Similar to SS, great control, precise, slam, fast, but with that tubby goodness to make the music sing!

The Metrum DACs are amazing - I had the HEX and Octave II prior to that. I don't think they excel at all types of music however - it's a while since I owned the HEX but I remember thinking that it's either stunning, or in some cases a little underwhelming depending on the source music/bitrate. At the time I played the HEX next to a modified Minimax 9018 DAC (I upgraded all internal caps/removed the tube stage/added bypass caps/added Burson v5 opamps/Removed dac selector switch) and side by side there was not a lot in it (at all) - in fact I had a hard job picking a favourite - stock the Minimax plain sucked next to the HEX regardless of whether it was run with opamps or tube. It was a no brainer selling the HEX at that stage as the Metrum was about $4.5k AUD and the minimax owed me about $400 with the V5's

 

[jerick70]

The Metrum DACs are amazing - I had the HEX and Octave II prior to that. I don't think they excel at all types of music however - it's a while since I owned the HEX but I remember thinking that it's either stunning, or in some cases a little underwhelming depending on the source music/bitrate. At the time I played the HEX next to a modified Minimax 9018 DAC (I upgraded all internal caps/removed the tube stage/added bypass caps/added Burson v5 opamps/Removed dac selector switch) and side by side there was not a lot in it (at all) - in fact I had a hard job picking a favourite - stock the Minimax plain sucked next to the HEX regardless of whether it was run with opamps or tube. It was a no brainer selling the HEX at that stage as the Metrum was about $4.5k AUD and the minimax owed me about $400 with the V5's

I wish I had your DIY skills. I would love to enhance all of my gear.

 

[beyerdude]

I wish I had your DIY skills. I would love to enhance all of my gear.

Haha - I've totally stuffed up a mod to the E12diy (pulled off the copper traces when removing stock caps) - it never worked again, the minimax copper traces are also not that great. People used to knock the chinese rip off amp boards but the traces are generally better on these than on some of the original boards - modern solder with its higher melting point means it's a harder job - that's why I still use older/non compliant solder on my own boards - it's a lot easier to work with.

 

[jerick70]

Haha - I've totally stuffed up a mod to the E12diy (pulled off the copper traces when removing stock caps) - it never worked again, the minimax copper traces are also not that great. People used to knock the chinese rip off amp boards but the traces are generally better on these than on some of the original boards - modern solder with its higher melting point means it's a harder job - that's why I still use older/non compliant solder on my own boards - it's a lot easier to work with.

I can solder. When it comes to testing circuits I'm not so good. Scares the crap out of me when I get to doing it... When I had a LittleDot MK VI+ I purchased some cap and resistor upgrades for it that were recommended on Head-fi. After I got the parts I started reading some how tos on the upgrade an found a guy that killed his $900 LittleDot doing the same mod. I took it to my local electronics tech right away. That's a lot of money to flush down the toilet.

I owned the E12diy for a while. Not a bad amp. I rolled opamps into it. They made the case to small for a lot of the opamps that I wanted to try though. The muse opamps barely fit in there and were my favorite of the lot. Too bad the Burson discrete opamps didn't fit.

 

[Audio Addict]

I am also interested to see if this new "play" unit gets coverage. It is a quite novel idea about how to bring better audio to the PC. Maybe not great timing tho0ugh. PC sales continue to fall each year. Of course for a company the size of Burson, it won't mean much if they sell a few hundred thousand fewer PCs next year, as long as they can get sufficient penetration to make the development costs worth it.

Now that you mentioned the "https://www.bursonaudio.com/products/play/ how many are going to try one. I have put in my order this morning and can't wait even though I have a Lycan already and lots of opamps to roll.

 

[jerick70]

Now that you mentioned the "https://www.bursonaudio.com/products/play/ how many are going to try one. I have put in my order this morning and can't wait even though I have a Lycan already and lots of opamps to roll.

I'm really tempted to try one. I have so much other audio gear right now though, I don't know if I can justify it.

 

[Audio Addict]

I'm really tempted to try one. I have so much other audio gear right now though, I don't know if I can justify it.

I have terrible self control as I buy but can't sell.

 

[mandrake50]

Good to find a kindred soul !!

 

[jerick70]

My problem is I buy and don't want to sell.

 

[Audio Addict]

Good to find a kindred soul !!

I see that CA Liquid Carbon in your profile picture. I have one of those too.

When I came up with my user name here 16 years ago, I would never have thought how true it would be.