Sumeet’s Burson Conductor 3 Reference with Focal Aria 948

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Sales Burson
November 29, 2021

Post Info

Feedbacks - Conductor 3R | 3XR
Bluesound Node 2i, Burson Conductor 3 Reference, Focal Aria 948, Luxman 507UX II

First time to get it going was an issue in dac only output. I had to set it up in preamp output, connect via Bluetooth directly by passing the Node 2I and slowly increase the volume control. After this initial setup issue I had no problems playing in dac only fixed output and streaming through Node 2I. Overall a very good product, I also have a Lumin T2 (far more expensive than C3XR) and this matches that in sound quality. I guess after a certain price point spending more money is pointless on DACs. The user manual needs a lot of improvement. For those uninitiated, wat is the difference between I/V stage and LP stage of OP amps? How does it differ in dac operation /SQ if someone replaces only one these sections? Filters? What are there sound characteristics without graphs etc, just in layman terms? Apart from these issues, excellent product 👍

The System

Listening with

Focal Aria 948

Burson

Burson Conductor 3 Reference · DAC / headphone amplifier / preamp · discontinued

Output power (headphone): 16 Ω 7.5 W · 32 Ω 5 W · 100 Ω 1.75 W · 150 Ω 1.16 W · 300 Ω 0.58 W
Output impedance: 0.5 Ω (headphone); 1 Ω (pre out); 25 Ω (DAC out)
Output voltage: RCA 2 V (DAC out)
Gain: High / Medium / Low; dB not published
Inputs: 2x RCA; USB (XMOS; PCM to 768 kHz/32-bit, native DSD512); Toslink; coaxial; Bluetooth 5.0 aptX HD; microphone
Input impedance: 40 kΩ
Input sensitivity: line level
Outputs: RCA pre out; RCA DAC out; 2x 6.35 mm headphone
DAC / chipset: 2x ESS ES9038Q2M
Other: Model R180 (3R); SE only; THD <0.0015%; FR ±1 dB 0-58 kHz

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Also in the system

Luxman 507UX II

Bluesound Node 2i · Streamer: network streamer with DAC, headphone out (BluOS, MQA, aptX HD) · discontinued

Output voltage: RCA not published
Inputs: Wi-Fi / Ethernet; USB-A; optical / 3.5 mm analogue combo; Bluetooth aptX HD (bidirectional)
Outputs: RCA (fixed or variable); coaxial; optical; subwoofer; 3.5 mm headphone; 12 V trigger
DAC / chipset: 32-bit / 192 kHz DAC (chip not named)
Other: SNR -110 dBA; THD+N 0.005%; 16-24 bit / 32-192 kHz; 4 W idle

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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.