Soundnews has reviewed the Burson Conductor Voyager DAC, Class-A headphone amplifier and preamp, and gave it the site’s Highly Impressive Award. Reviewer Sandu Vitalie (published 26 November 2025) wrote: “Undoubtedly, the Conductor Voyager deserved our coveted Highly Impressive Award”. He also reviewed Burson’s Fusion Core power supply alongside it. Here are the highlights, including the points he criticised.
Soundnews describes a fully balanced, fully discrete design built around the ESS 9039 PRO DAC chip, a first for Burson. It uses eight ONSEMI bipolar power transistors, four swappable V6 Vivid or V7 Vivid PRO discrete op-amps, six Max Current power supplies and SP-02 Silent Power modules, and delivers 10 Watts per channel into 16 Ohms from the 4-pin XLR output. The reviewer calls it a dual-mono, fully symmetrical design and says it can work as a DAC, a DAC and headphone amp, a DAC and preamp, or a dedicated headphone amp or preamp.
The new Cool Case 2.0 uses two low-RPM coolers below the motherboard. Measured with an infrared thermometer, the top and bottom plates ran about 7°C cooler on average than the Soloist Voyager, and he could not hear the fans “under any condition or load”.
In his office the Conductor Voyager ran as DAC and headphone amp, fed by an EverSolo T8 streamer or an Onix Zenith XST20 CD/SACD transport, with headphones including the HiFiMAN Susvara Unveiled, T+A Solitaire P and Bandoss Avija, plus ultra-sensitive IEMs such as the FiiO FX17. In the living room it fed a Chord Electronics Ultima 2 PRE and Ultima 3 mono power amps driving Raidho TD 2.2 loudspeakers.
Dynamics scored 96/100 and resolution 95/100, with an overall score of 94/100. He describes its dynamics as “unyielding, thunderous, and explosively punchy”, and says “resolution has never been higher on a Burson all-in-one”. He also found the treble never too sharp or fatiguing, calling it “one of the very few ESS-Sabre based DACs that doesn’t sound like one”.
With the FiiO FX17 on low gain from the XLR output, there was zero hiss during playback, and he found the noise floor noticeably lower than any Burson before it, including the Conductor GT4 and Soloist Voyager. With desktop headphones the noise vanished entirely: “probably the darkest background I’ve ever encountered in an all-in-one.”
He found the step from Deluxe to the MAX package with the Fusion Core power supply “a significant one”, lowering the noise floor and improving transparency and staging. Against the Conductor GT4 in blind tests, he heard purer, tighter bass and smoother treble on the Voyager, and found it a better match for the Sennheiser HD800S and Susvara Unveiled.
“If I were to pick ONE unit from the tens of all-in-one devices I have played with over the years, the Conductor Voyager would be it,” the review concludes, listing it among its pros as “the Best all-in-one unit you can buy right now”. Prices quoted in the review were $3,799 (Standard), $4,399 (Deluxe) and $4,999 (MAX).
Read the full review on Soundnews: Burson Conductor Voyager Review — Full Analysis of Burson’s New Flagship DAC/Amp.
Discover the full features and specifications on the Burson Conductor Voyager product page.
