That’s all you needed to say! haha
Yeah, yesterday I didn’t sleep till 2:30 am listening to this thing…started listening at around 11pm. lol
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Spent some time setting up the Burson as my new preamp and got the SOL turntable hooked up too. I’ll refrain from passing final judgement for now but I suspect there will be a Freya+ and Lyr 3 showing up on eBay shortly. Anyone try out the V6 Classic op amps?
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Too late! Sound can’t get any worse than that! haha
Too bad I can’t test is as preamp myself, though I’ve only heard good things. I’m curious what that chain looks like. I don’t have a turntable so my knowledge is limited. I’m assuming you’re using an xlr to rca converter?
Haven’t tried the classics but according to Burson, the classics are more intimate and colored. Vivids are supposed to be more holographic and detailed.
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My Yggdrasil & Vidar amps and all use XLR’s and the turntable uses the RCA input. No converter needed. I’m may try a pair of classics just out of curiosity.
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Cool, let us know how they compare with each other
Great impressions! We should have some Burson on the way to the office here in the next little bit so I am looking forward to checking their gear out. They’ve been on my radar for awhile and have quite a few interesting releases now!
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Thank you!
Oh, nice! Which models are on their way?
Yeah they just announced preorders for the updated playmate which is pretty cool. This soloist amp just keeps impressing me each day I listen to it.
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FYI, if anyone is interested in any Burson product, they are having a promo sale of 20% off on all products while supplies last. I already think the soloist is a great value at its original price but with the additional 20% off, it’s a steal!
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Just installed the Classic Opamps. They don’t sound that much different than the Vivids. I’m sort of liking them better. Time will tell if I go back to Vivids. It is nice to have a choice.
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What about them do you like better? Did you change all of them? Or just the two at the buffer stage?
It would be great to try third-party ones as well…
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I just changed the two input buffer opamps. They say the volume ones don’t make much difference at all. I’m a lousy reviewer, that said when used as a preamp they seem warmer, more organic, less shrill on bad recordings. With Dan Clark Ether 2 headphones stick with Vivids.
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Grear review. Soloist 3X looks very nice. I already got A90, not so sure whether to step up to Burson now. Anyone have compared A90 vs Soloist?
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Thank you for the kind of words! Just a note, these are just impressions. Though, my thoughts are still the same after having this for a little bit.
There’s a video from the Passion for Sound yt channel where he compares the two. I don’t have the A90 so I can’t say, but he basically says the A90 appears more detailed because everything is 2d and in your face kind of music presentation, whilst the Soloist is more three-dimensional while delivering all the details in a smooth, more transparent manner.
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Does anyone know of any significant differences between the Soloist 3X and the amp section of the Conductor series of DAC/amps?
@Richard, how would you compare the Soloist to your Lyr 3?
And final question, is it safe to leave on all the time? I’ve read comments that it sounds best after a couple of hours of warm up, so I’m wondering if there’s any reason why I wouldn’t just leave it on.
I’m looking to get a solid state amp to complement my Lyr 3 and Pendant, and I’ve been enjoying my time with the Schiit Asgard 3 enough that I was going to order one of those, but with the 20% off sale (thanks for the heads up @hifiDJ) and Burson’s 30 day return policy, I might try one of these.
The Soloist seems more suited to balanced, whereas my whole setup is currently single-ended. I use the RCA output of my Bifrost 2 into a 3-way RCA switch, which then connects to my amps, so I would only ever use the RCA inputs of the Soloist, therefore having access to only half the power. On the other hand, the Conductor 3 Reference (single ended) gives you the same power as the Soloist’s balanced output. I don’t really need another DAC, but the Conductor DAC’s ESS Sabre chips would give me another “flavor” to play with.
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To my understanding it’s essentially the same design. Though interestingly the Soloist is rated a one more 1 watt of power. Not sure why that is.
I’d love to hear further impressions of the Soloist, it looks like a very good unit.
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Can’t really comment on your first question but what I do know is that Burson didn’t skip out on the components just because it’s in their “lower end” of products. This thing has no compromises in terms of being a straight headphone amp and maybe pre-amp from what I’ve heard (haven’t tested out preamp).
I do suggest since there aren’t many reviews yet, to send burson an email and ask them. They’re pretty responsive and they’ll be honest with you, at least from my experience.
I don’t think it’s unsafe, however, since it’s class A you might see your electric bill go up a little. As for warm-up, I have found that it takes roughly 2 hours for peak performance. It probably only needs an hour, but my “little cave” is colder than usual during the winter. (testing was unscientific)
No problem, I got you! I really do think the soloist is fantastic and worth its asking price.
Yes, according to burson they emphasize the balanced side of the soloist. That’s one of the reasons why it doesn’t have single-ended outputs. Inconvenient as it is, if you want single-ended outputs, you need to get a “special” converter for that. It talks about it more in the manual and jay from nextbestthingstudio touched on it in his review.
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If you’re looking for more impressions, there’s more on head-fi. Not many headphoneforum members here have the soloist, unfortunately.
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Well I have a few Class A amps, A Bryston BHA-1 headphone amp ( 6 Class A fully discrete operational amps inside) and a Pass Labs XA30.5. Both reside in my office, but I turned them off when I’m not using them for a period of time. The PASS can heat up a room in the winter time and make it a little uncomfortable in the summer in the Fl even with AC. LOL.
I sure wouldn’t worry about the Burson, unless the vendor said turn the unit off.
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Yup! It doesn’t get that hot since the casing does a magnificent job spreading heat evenly.
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@PaisleyUnderground, I just did a quick comparison using a single ended cable on the Ether 2’s. The Soloist sounds much better. But it better considering the price difference, not a very fair comparison. I’m going to sell the Lyr 3. BTW, the XLR cables do sound better.
A note on the Classic opamps. The more I listen to them the more I like them in my system. I find myself listening with them for much longer periods of time. The Vivids are sure nice too.
For a short while I used the Soloist as my preamp. My Vidars were fine with the Vivids but did not like the Classics. Ran hot and even went into protection shut down. Keep in mind the Harbeths are 6 Ohms and only 83 dB and I’m running speaker level inputs to the sub.
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