John’s Burson Conductor 3 with Focal Elegia

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Sales Burson
October 22, 2019

Post Info

Feedbacks - Conductor 3R | 3XR
Focal Elegia

Cheapest way to experience high quality audio is via headphones. Speaker systems cost a pretty penny, and take up a lot of room- and the room it is in colours the sound. To get the best out of higher end headphones, u need a headphone amplifier and DAC to drive them. Burson Audio is one of very few Australian companies that designs their audio products here in Melbourne! This compact bad boy is their latest release and I’ve been putting it through its paces for the last month as a headphone amplifier and to process the signal into powered monitors. Its a carefully crafted piece of electrical engineering that delivers stellar sound and convenience. If this is your thing, go check em out…

Mike

The System

Listening with

Focal Elegia · Headphones: closed-back, dynamic (40 mm Al/Mg M-dome), circumaural · discontinued

Impedance: 35 Ω
Sensitivity: 105 dB SPL / 1 mW @ 1 kHz ≈ 119.6 dB/V (calc.)
Frequency response: 5 Hz – 23 kHz
Plugs / cables supplied: 3.5 mm cable (1.2 m) (per datasheet)

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Burson

Burson Conductor 3 · DAC / headphone amplifier / preamp family (Conductor 3 Performance / 3 Reference) · discontinued

Output impedance: 1 Ω (pre out); 25 Ω (DAC out); headphone 0.5 Ω (3R) / 0.6 Ω (3P)
Output voltage: RCA 2 V (DAC out)
Gain: High / Low (3P); High / Medium / Low (3R); dB not published
Inputs: USB (XMOS; PCM to 768 kHz/32-bit, native DSD512); Toslink; Bluetooth 5.0 aptX HD; microphone (3R adds 2x RCA analogue in + coaxial)
Outputs: RCA pre out; RCA DAC out; 6.35 mm headphone (SE only)
DAC / chipset: ESS ES9038Q2M (1x in 3P, 2x in 3R)
Other: 3P (M180): 4 W @16 Ω, 2 W @32, 0.64 W @100, 0.16 W @300; 1x ES9038Q2M; THD <0.0017%. 3R (R180): 7.5 W @16, 5 W @32, 1.75 W @100, 0.58 W @300; 2x ES9038Q2M; THD <0.0015%. Both FR ±1 dB 0-58 kHz.

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Specs from manufacturer data unless a source below says otherwise. “calc.” values are worked out from those figures (V = √(P × R); 110 dB SPL used as a loud reference level). Gear listed without specs is not in our spec library yet.