Hi Guys,
I promised a review of the Burson V5 a long time ago, and finally here it is!
My dac (I call it The MonsterDAC - thanks to
@motberg ) is based on AK4495SEQ from diyinhk.
To be honest, the name is not correct because this isn't a DAC but a networkplayer, based on Raspberry Pi3 with PicorePlayer.....
My starting point was to get the best out of the diyinhk AK4495SEQ implementation.
Of course, all starts with choosing an enclosure. I found this one very appealing, a 430x350x60mm 6kg full aluminium housing.
Since I wanted the DAC and FIFO II (including DUAL XO II board) as much as possible isolated from transformer vibrations,
I did choose for a wooden sub-chassis for all R-Cores, PSU's and EMI/RFI filters. All R-Cores are fully mounted in rubber onto the
wooden subchassis to prevent transferring the (minimal) vibrations the R-cores produce. Also DAC and FIFO II kit are fully mounted in rubber,
thus completely isolated from transformer and other vibrations.
I did choose R-Core transformers with electrostatic shield and copper outer shield for best performance.
Further, wooden subchassis, aluminium parts and RPI are fully covered and shielded with copper, which is connected to ground.
The DAC PCB is heavily modified, for example with much bigger cap values, especially for VREF, has ALL powerlines seperately fed etc.
All powerlines have a dedicated 0.8uV ultra low noise PSU (LT3042) with EMI/RFI filter on board, all PSU's have a dedicated R-Core,
and all R-cores have a dedicated EMI/RFI filter.
All EMI/RFI filters for DAC, FIFO II kit and RPI are connected to another, bigger EMI/RFI filter which keeps all digitall stuff seperated from analog stage.
Analog stage has it's own EMI/RFI filter (and, of course R-Core and 0.8uV PSU's) which is connected to mains
before the bigger EMI/RFI filter for all digital stuff.
This way it keeps PSRR at the highest possible value.
DAC is fed thru I2S from Ian's FIFO II kit.
At first I used LME49720HA (MIL-SPEC metal can which DOES sound different from plastic version) and compared it with Burson Audio SS V5i
http://www.head-fi.org/t/432749/the-opamp-thread/5325#post_12799851
Burson Audio SS V5i clearly was the winner! Very good sounding opamp which comes close to discrete outputstage in my opinion, so I used V5i for a while.
I couldn't resist to compare Burson Audio SS V5i with a low cost Chinese discrete FET output stage:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/432749/the-opamp-thread/5325#post_12802191
At first, after burn-in, it sounded better, soundstage was very wide and deep, but after a while all went worse, bass was overstressed which killed the overall tonality.
To me it sounded kind of dull. Finally I went back to V5i and again was very pleased with it's performance
I kept it this way for a long time but finally replaced Burson Audio SS V5i with V5 for reviewing, as promised
After burn-in time, about 150 hours, it immediately sounded a lot better than the V5i. They, V5i and V5, both have same sound characteristics.
The presentation is very musical, mellow, lots of detail and room information, no hint of harshness.
V5 presents it in a way I never heard before, (that is, except with my own build discrete Class-A - build with Ferranti Mosfets - output stages).
Vocals and instruments are very natural sounding, lifelike, many recordings gave me gooseflesh. The overall presentation is just amazing, the field of depth,
the ability to present accurate layers, the wideness of the soundstage (it's much bigger than my listening room, in width, depth
and height),
blackness around voices and instruments, it's just breathtaking!
Also, all funny 3D and Phase gimmicks, which are present in many recordings, such as sounds BEHIND or LEFT or RIGHT from you, now really are stunning.
For example, I have a recording from some of the Telarc sample cd's (sorry, not sure which one it is) in which there is an arrow shot from behind the speakers
into the left side of the room, this now REALLY sounds as if it hits just next to me, on the left side, while before it was somewhere in the middle of the left wall.....
In my design Burson Audio SS V5 doesn't get too hot, to me it feels a few degrees above body temperature, maybe about 45 degree Celcius.
Sadly I made a mistake and asked Burson for 2x Dual version while I meant to use 2x Single for which I wanted to use seperate PSU lines.
Good thing is, this will keep some room for improvement and something to wish for
Verdict:
If you have a high quality DAC, networkplayer, preamp, source device, bufferstage or whatever kind of opamp based outputstage, try the Burson V5 discrete opamps,
you will be pleasently be surprised on how these devices (can) perform (depending on your design)! To me they are a keeper
I never tried the bigger V4 version, maybe that is something to keep in mind too
Note:
If you plan to buy and use V5, you probably better contact Burson first in relation to unity gain and power consumption needed within the design of your device.
Last but definitely NOT least:
Many, many thanks to
@SS-Audio Charles from Burson who provided the V5 samples and made it possible for me to review the grand SS V5!
Regards,
Alex
