Gue’s Burson Conductor 3X Reference with HiFiMAN Susvara

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Post Info

Really loving the Conductor 3X Reference after installing the 2 classic opamps with the vivids. This takes away the ess DAC treble glare and gives it lush and body in the mids and bass. Super smooth now with the Susvaras!

Other than the opamps giving me issues in the I/V stage with static noise, switching it to LP is fine for the time being until I get that figured out.

The System

Listening with

HiFiMAN Susvara · Headphones: open-back, planar magnetic, circumaural
  • Impedance: 60 Ω
  • Sensitivity: 83 dB (reference not stated by HiFiMAN)
  • Frequency response: 6 Hz – 75 kHz
  • Plugs / cables supplied: not published (HiFiMAN spec page lists no connector)
  • Other: weight 450 g

[1]

Burson

Burson Conductor 3X Reference · DAC / headphone amplifier / preamp · discontinued
  • Output power (XLR / SE): 16 Ω 7.5 W / 3.75 W · 32 Ω 5 W / 2.5 W · 100 Ω 1.75 W / 0.88 W · 150 Ω 1.16 W / 0.58 W · 300 Ω 0.58 W / 0.3 W
  • Output impedance: 0.5 Ω (headphone); 1 Ω (pre out); 25 Ω (DAC out)
  • Output voltage: RCA 2 V (DAC out)
  • Gain: High / Low; dB not published
  • Inputs: 2x XLR; 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: XLR pre out; line-level DAC out; 6.35 mm + 4-pin XLR headphone
  • DAC / chipset: 2x ESS ES9038Q2M
  • Other: Model R180X (3XR); THD <0.0015%; FR ±1 dB 0-58 kHz

[2] [3] [4]

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.

  1. HiFiMAN Susvara: hifiman.com
  2. Burson Conductor 3X Reference product page (conductor-3x page, archived 2019)
  3. Burson Conductor 3X Reference product page (conductor-3-performance page, archived 2020)
  4. Burson Conductor 3X References User Manual V1.6 (Burson downloads)