It’s only been half a day, and it is impressive -notably the airy and delicate treble – I will give an updated review in a week once I let it burn in – or after my initial 100 hours, test different IC cables – compare it against my Tube headphone amp (which was a little less expensive but has a $1000 of NOS tube upgrades – and currently beats the Burson—but let’s recheck this in a week or two, as the bass is getting a bit deeper and articulate as I play the Soloist). I love the volume control – it is fantastic!! And the settings controls are intuitive and easy to operate – thank you, Burson. So far only been testing with the Audeze LCD-4z (custom build), and there has been no fatigue – and I have worn them for 6 hours. Later this week, I will change over to the Audeze LCD-5. And then, I will test it as a preamp to my speaker amps. But the initial impression is that this is a keeper (absolutely). If I can update my review later, I will. I love talking about equipment comparisons. These aren’t very pretty photos from my iPhone – the Burson doesn’t have a home on my desktop yet, so I can get to the cables quickly and experiment, and so far, sits in front of a Shiit Audio Freya + preamp (which I may replace with the Soloist 3xGT if the speaker SQ improves with it as pre-amp). But it is progressively sounding better as day one grows longer, and I am impressed. Did I mention how much I love the volume knob? ;) *The LCD-5 is going to be a treat). And Burson has excellent support (Hi Alex! Cheers, Melbourne).
Matching notes: At 15 Ω and 98 dB/mW, the LCD-4z is a low-impedance load: about 0.49 V (16 mW, 33 mA) for 110 dB SPL (calc.). Burson does not publish a 15 Ω rating for the Soloist 3X GT; its nearest published rating is 10 W XLR / 5 W SE into 16 Ω. The Soloist 3X GT’s 0.5 Ω headphone output impedance is 1/30 of the load. [1] [2] [3]
Matching notes: At 14 Ω and 90 dB/mW, the LCD-5 is a low-impedance load, and a fairly demanding one: about 1.2 V (100 mW, 85 mA) for 110 dB SPL (calc.). Burson does not publish a 14 Ω rating for the Soloist 3X GT; its nearest published rating is 10 W XLR / 5 W SE into 16 Ω. The Soloist 3X GT’s 0.5 Ω headphone output impedance is 1/28 of the load. [4] [2] [3]
Matching notes: Burson lists the Soloist 3X GT’s analogue inputs as line level (35 kΩ input impedance). The Schiit Yggdrasil is rated at 2.0 V (RCA) / 4.0 V (XLR) output. [5] [6] [2] [3]
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.
