Dear friends,
A couple weeks ago, John from Burson Audio contacted me and asked me if I wanted to review Burson OPAmps in the Pass Labs Whammy I recently finished building. I must say I was very exited as I never had the opportunity to listen to any Burson OPAmp so far. 3 weeks later, I got the Burson Audio v6 Vivid in my mailbox. First and foremost, I'd like to take a moment and send out a big THANK YOU to him! John, thanks for this opportunity and the trust you put in me!
John asked me to do an honest review of the Burson OPAmp and insisted on this point. This is a problem: Being an human being (my ex might disagree), it’s downright impossible to do an impartial review, especially since I have quite some expectations regarding the so highly prized and priced Burson Audio gear. Confirmation bias is the enemy, we all know that.
Fortunately, I happened to build 2 absolutely identical Pass Labs Whammy Headphone Amps. One is for me, the second one is meant as a gift for my brother. They are both built with the exact same MIL-grade components.
This gives me the opportunity to set up real double-blind tests in which I want to involve other audio enthusiasts in listening sessions.
Last week I built an A/B switcher in order to switch both amps between a source and a headphone without having to replug anything (see my thread here: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/diy-audio-switch-for-a-b-double-blind-tests.404509/ ). The idea is to be able to switch back and forth in a fraction of a second without any disruption.
In the blue corner, we'll have the Burr-Brown OPA2134PA and the Burson Audio v6 vivid in the red corner! (Other matches could also be scheduled later on...)
As a source, I will be using my current reference setup:
I’m looking forward to publishing the results of these listening sessions with the whole community!
I have my own set of reference songs, but I’d like to involve as many people as possible. If you have tips regarding hi-quality recordings that I could use, feel free to share those with me! (ideally, music from all around the world would be great!)
Also, if you live near the Belgian/French/Luxembourg area (near Thionville, France), you are more than welcome to PM me if you’d like to participate in a listening session. I’ll pay for the beer and wine if you bring your ears and good mood 🙂
Cheers,
Denis
A couple weeks ago, John from Burson Audio contacted me and asked me if I wanted to review Burson OPAmps in the Pass Labs Whammy I recently finished building. I must say I was very exited as I never had the opportunity to listen to any Burson OPAmp so far. 3 weeks later, I got the Burson Audio v6 Vivid in my mailbox. First and foremost, I'd like to take a moment and send out a big THANK YOU to him! John, thanks for this opportunity and the trust you put in me!
John asked me to do an honest review of the Burson OPAmp and insisted on this point. This is a problem: Being an human being (my ex might disagree), it’s downright impossible to do an impartial review, especially since I have quite some expectations regarding the so highly prized and priced Burson Audio gear. Confirmation bias is the enemy, we all know that.
Fortunately, I happened to build 2 absolutely identical Pass Labs Whammy Headphone Amps. One is for me, the second one is meant as a gift for my brother. They are both built with the exact same MIL-grade components.
This gives me the opportunity to set up real double-blind tests in which I want to involve other audio enthusiasts in listening sessions.
Last week I built an A/B switcher in order to switch both amps between a source and a headphone without having to replug anything (see my thread here: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/diy-audio-switch-for-a-b-double-blind-tests.404509/ ). The idea is to be able to switch back and forth in a fraction of a second without any disruption.
In the blue corner, we'll have the Burr-Brown OPA2134PA and the Burson Audio v6 vivid in the red corner! (Other matches could also be scheduled later on...)
As a source, I will be using my current reference setup:
- CD transport: Technics SL-PS7, or if I have time to finish it, the Philips CD931 Fikus Transport (a highly modified Philips CD 931 player by Lampizator. See here for the project details: (http://lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/TRANSPORT/FIKUS/Fikustransport.html
- DAC: Behringer Ultramatch SRC2496 Upsampler and ADC
- Headphones: Sennheiser HD600 - my workhorse for many, many years
- Switch: DIY A/B/C/D switcher (see link above) made from an old 4-way LPT Printer switch
I’m looking forward to publishing the results of these listening sessions with the whole community!
I have my own set of reference songs, but I’d like to involve as many people as possible. If you have tips regarding hi-quality recordings that I could use, feel free to share those with me! (ideally, music from all around the world would be great!)
Also, if you live near the Belgian/French/Luxembourg area (near Thionville, France), you are more than welcome to PM me if you’d like to participate in a listening session. I’ll pay for the beer and wine if you bring your ears and good mood 🙂
Cheers,
Denis
