I’ve driven my Susvaras with a Schiit Ragnarok 2, a Cayin HA-6A, and a Cayin HA-300 and not had a problem.
My normal routine with those amps is to turn my digital music library, DAC, and headphone amp on, they are all powered through an ISOL-8 Minisub 2 power conditioner, plug the XLR cable into the amp, attach the connectors to the headphone, and then play music. The mConnect app I use on my iPhone to play music stored on my Melco N1ZS digital music library takes a minute or two to detect the minimserver server I’m running so I’m never playing music through the amp as it’s turned on.
The Burson Conductor 3XR connects via Bluetooth so I was switching between my iPhone and Sony Walkman to check that LDAC on the Walkman was better (it was slightly as you’d expect). Bluetooth reconnects quickly so I assume music may have been playing through the iPhone or Walkman as I turned the Burson off and back on. I had it set to high gain for the Susvaras with volume at 50.
It took me a while to work out you had to push the volume dial in to select a function in the menu but apart from that the menus were pretty simple to use. I was looking up what the different filters did.
I’m so sorry to hear that you’re dealing with this issue. I do hope you can get the headphones replaced under warranty. Keep us updated, please. It will be nice to hear that things work out for you. I hope you can get a new pair of Susvara soon.
Yep I’d reach out to burson first for warranty claim and see what they will do about your Sus. Then i’d reach out to HFM to see if you can also place a warranty claim to fix the driver.
I own the Soloist 3XP and have had 0 problems also have rolled up op amps with no problems. But any electronics component certainly can fail at any time. Just sucks it did it with the Sus.
As a rule of thumb anytime I roll op amps or try a new amp or roll tubes I always use my cheapest set of hps first as a dummy run just to prevent this from happening.
Please do report back on how the companies proceed with the support process. Also do be patient! Focal helped me out with my OG clears where I had a driver problem and a resonance issue. They gave me an out warranty courtesy fix and replaced the driver and fixed the resonance issue for me no charge. It took probably 2 months.
Here comes a ”newbie” question, so have patience with me .
My dac only has rca out, will I benefit from the balanced design if I use xlr headphone cable? (I only have single-ended cable and thinking of buying a balanced cable).
No. XLR from RCA loses the third conductor used for creating a balanced connection. You are good with RCA. I have rarely had any real world benefit from RCA to XLR interconnects.
Actually, at home most of the time my RCA connection has been superior due to the care that I put into construction of the cables. I rarely make my own XLR since they really don’t do much other than when I am using gear in a commercial space or in a public school in which the lighting and electronics might wreak havoc on the noise introduced into the signal. But, at those times I am not interested in achieving audiophile sound and commercially available XLR do the job nicely over my sometimes long 100 foot cable runs.
I am using the Soloist 3XP with the Chord Qutest (RCA) and works fine. I also use my headphones with the 4 pin XLR cable and I do hear a difference versus using the single ended cable.
Balanced input vs. not balanced INPUT.
First, make the distinction from balanced input from xlr and not-balanced input from rca. As mentioned earlier, one has three conductors to balance the signal, one does not.
. Single end vs Balanced headphone AMPLIFICATION.
Headphone amplification on amplifiers can have a balanced output, usually on XLR and sometimes other four pole connectors. Balanced in this case meaning the left headphone driver receives its own separate positive and ground and the right headphone driver receives its own separate positive and ground. The other type of headphone output is single ended output which is often of the 1/4 inch TRS connection type. The ground being shared by both left and right drivers of the headphone, hence the term single ended.
Some amplifiers are designed to output best and most power from one or the other. If the designer implements both outputs, she/he is likely to put more effort into making the balanced output the better of the two. Otherwise consumers will wonder why should they purchase a balanced amp that performs worse from its balanced output.
So, with the Burson Soloist 3X. You have both. The designer of this amp has made it such that the balanced headphone output is much more powerful than the non-balanced output for driving headphones. Ultimately, in your case, try to get a balanced headphone cable for your Burson amplifier in order to take full advantage of its capabilities.
I am glad that you can hear a difference. Are you connecting the Soloist 3XP using RCA? I have not tried the Supercharger 5A (and not even the 3A), but I currently own the iFi DC ipurifier2 and I can confirm that the sound is more dynamic, bass is a little bit punchier, there is slightly more clarity in the sound and in some tracks, it also sounds more holographic.
As I said I do not own any super charger and the comparison was using the stock power supply vs ifi dc ipurifier 2 with the stock power supply.
I asked Burson about this in the past and this is what they told me:
For the Super Charger 3A, it can boost the performance of your unit by 15% while the Super Charger 5A can boost the performance of your unit by 20% more.
My guess is that the 5A version uses better electronic components and they perform better.
FYI, now having asked Burson about the performance improvements. They come from filtering out noise and charging the output transistors at a faster rate. (Very responsive customer service btw.) The improvements between 3A and 5A would probably come from the charging of the transistors as the noise floor is really good with the 3A.
I’ve been looking at the design and construction of the GT and have been unable to understand where the sonic improvements come from, basically more parts but AFAIK the ”same” layout and quality of components. (Of course there is more functionality and power in the GT vs the Soloist so I’m not negative about it in anyway).
That got me thinking about current ’cause the GT comes with the 5a…
.
