Burson Conductor Voyager Hi-Fi News Review: Outstanding Product

The Burson Conductor Voyager is reviewed in the March 2026 issue of Hi-Fi News & Record Review. Andrew Everard did the listening and Paul Miller ran the lab tests. It earned a Hi-Fi News Outstanding Product badge and a Sound Quality score of 88%. Here are the highlights.

Flagship of the Voyager range

Hi-Fi News describes the Conductor as the flagship headphone amp, preamp and DAC of Burson’s premium Voyager range. It is built in a “Cool Case” of 6mm aluminium. The headphone amps run in Class A, and the power-amp output stage is Class AB. The review lists two analogue inputs (RCA and XLR), fixed or variable outputs, an RCA subwoofer output, and optical, coaxial, USB-C and Bluetooth inputs. The headphone outputs are 4.4mm Pentaconn, XLR and 6.35mm. Analogue inputs pass through a 192kHz/24-bit ADC. The DAC is the ES9039SPRO, which handles up to 768kHz/32-bit and DSD512. The UK price is £3900 for the Standard package, through UK distributor Armour Home.

Sound: dynamic, wide open and punchy

“The sound is dynamic, wide open and delivered with serious punch,” writes Everard. He played Eric Clapton’s “Get Ready” through Austrian Audio’s The Composer headphones, where he found that Burson’s unit gave them “even better grip and drive”. He also listened to The Police and Dave Brubeck, and to Lisa Pulman and Joe Stilgoe through Oppo’s PM-1. He describes the output as massive and advises using Low Gain.

Lab report highlights

• Headphone output: 8.91W into 8Ω, 2.74W into 32Ω and 151mW into 600Ω, with an 800mΩ output impedance.
• Headphone distortion of 0.0009–0.006%, and a headphone S/N ratio of 87.4dB.
• DAC mode: 3.78V from a 134ohm output impedance, a 115dB A-weighted S/N ratio, and jitter of ≤12psec at all sample rates.
• Power consumption 55W, size 265x85x270mm, weight 7kg.

What Hi-Fi News would change

• The display symbols are “near-hieroglyphic”.
• The tweakable settings made no repeatable difference in listening, so it recommends the defaults.
• In the lab, the review unit reverted to the Minimum Phase Slow filter regardless of the menu setting.
• There is so much power that care is needed with the volume.

Verdict: Outstanding Product

“It’s not hard to see why Burson has gained its reputation in the head-fi arena, but this DAC/pre/headphone amp promises much wider appeal than that, with its combination of clarity, subtlety and sheer power – perhaps too much power if you don’t use it with care! Ignore all the tweakery and faffery built-in here, stick to the excellent default settings, and you won’t go far wrong.” Sound Quality: 88%.

Read the review on hifinews.com, or download the Hi-Fi News March 2026 review reprint (PDF).

Discover the full features and specifications on the Burson Conductor Voyager product page.