[Eiffel]

Play and Conductor Air are using also the "small" version of the 9018 - the K2M.
The "Big" Conductor use however the Full 9018 DAC. Probably we will se in the future a Conductor with 9038Pro. But the Conductor is more High-End and Play or Swing are more mainstream.

So I believe they want to keep it that way.

 

[raoultrifan]

Is it me or is Burson being a little misleading? The ESS flagship is the ES9038PRO. I see no mention of the Pro in their marketing. In fact they don't show a pic of the chip at all. I *highly* doubt that a dual PRO dac would cost just $400, so they must mean the 9038Q2m used in the Topping D50, Pro-Ject S2 etc.

EDIT: I see someone mentioned it's a single chip made into monaural.

ES9038PRO has virtually 4 x ES9038Q2M chips inside, so in single ended stereo equipment there will be same sound and same measurements. 2 x ES9038Q2M used in monoaural should measure better than single ES9038PRO configured in stereo mode (6 channels not being used).

 

[bwcgrx]

Good news!

I received an email from Burson this morning. The first batch of Playmates and Swings in black have completed assembly and will be shipping out over the next 5 to 10 working days. The Playmate Everest has been slightly delayed due to part supplier issues.

 

[Red Dragon]

Can someone please explain to me why these products do not have balanced connectors? Shouldn't they have balanced connectors given that the versions of these which have the best Opamps in them are very expensive?

 

[raoultrifan]

Going balanced will double the number of opamps inside and the no. of DAC chips...depends on the configuration used.
Why would you need balanced for? Do you intend to drive studio monitors with interconnects longer than 10 meters?

For a DAC going balanced might improve the SNR and THD with couple of dB (if any!), but schematic gets more complicated and also the backplate might not have enough room for the big XLR plugs. There's a good article about single-ended vs. balanced on Benchmark Audio website, please give it a read.

I personally own both single-ended and balanced DACs,headamps, headphones and studio monitors. I'm not sure price difference for the added components really worth the couple of dB improvement.

 

[Eiffel]

Balanced seems to be the new trend. More and more players and headphones have support for it.
But it's just a trend. With connecting problems - there are 2 standards now - 2.5mm and 4.4 mm.

ES9038PRO has virtually 4 x ES9038Q2M chips inside, so in single ended stereo equipment there will be same sound and same measurements. 2 x ES9038Q2M used in monoaural should measure better than single ES9038PRO configured in stereo mode (6 channels not being used).

However, most implementations of 9038Pro are using 4 channels linked in mono mode - so in stereo equipments, measurements are better, especially SNR.

 

[mitulparmar787]

Subscribed for more info

 

[dangab]

I've received on 18 Jan the tracking number. They started the shipping.

 

[BLacklWf]

I received mine two days ago. Burning it until Saturday for a critical listen.

 

[Eiffel]

Some pics please ?

 

[wushuliu]

ES9038PRO has virtually 4 x ES9038Q2M chips inside, so in single ended stereo equipment there will be same sound and same measurements. 2 x ES9038Q2M used in monoaural should measure better than single ES9038PRO configured in stereo mode (6 channels not being used).

Is there a link to where ESS has confirmed this? I know there are people who say they are the same but I have not seen anything from ESS to indicate this and I have not seen evidence from the specs to prove this.

 

[raoultrifan]

http://www.esstech.com/index.php/en...ers/audiophile-dacs/sabre-pro-dacs/es9038pro/
http://file2.dzsc.com/product/18/05/25/829029_170233543.pdf
etc.

Not sure what evidence is needed...ES9038C2M (or Q2M) are simple stereo chips, while the PRO version has 8 channels. This was happening with 9018S as well. Feel free to find designers documentation for the older ES9018S, but also 9028PRO and 9039PRO as well.

However, there are several designs with ES9018S or ES9028/9038PRO that only work in stereo mode, without all channel paralleled, so this will measure the same as ES9018K2M or ES9038C2M, but with a much higher cost. I personally think that dual ES9018K2m or dual ES9038C2M has a very good price/performance ratio, although this dual-mono design will only improve with at most couple of measurable dB the output performance.

 

[BLacklWf]

Some pics please ?

Will post one as soon as I can transfer the pic to my other comp.

 

[BLacklWf]

Too soon to tell on the sound quality, but one thing Swing bothers me is that I cannot play DSD 512. I'm not super technical when it comes to all the recent audio languages, but Swing says it plays DSD 512 natively and DSD 256 on DoP. I'm not 100% sure what 'natively' means, but without DoP neither Roon nor HQPlayer recognize it as a DSD device. So, I think Burson has to issue an ASIO driver for native DSD playback?

Anyway I spent a few hours trying to figure out, but never been able to play DSD512 up-converted by HQPlayer. Either Burson meant it can play a non-oversampled native DSD 512 file (if such a thing is ever available other than a few I've ever saw). Or, it just won't play DSD 512 unlike how Burson promoted it for.

For the sound, again it will need more time to settle in - but initially I was a bit disappointed. Initially my old Schiit DSD only Loki DAC sounded better although Loki only plays DSD 64. My Loki is 4 years old and was only $149 at its release - so it was a bit disappointment.

 

[dangab]

you got the basic one?