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Burson Soloist 3XP Review (Headphone Amp)

Rate this headphone amplifier:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 155 64.6%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 66 27.5%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther

    Votes: 5 2.1%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 14 5.8%

  • Total voters
    240

Robbo99999

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I voted this as "Poor", I think you could say it's even "broken" given it's myriad of poor performance and strange inconsistencies combined with the very high price you're paying for this headphone amplifier.
 

SlothRock

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If nothing else, this review helped a Burson 3X GT owner (me) to buy a Benchmark HPA 4 and ditch Burson. These results are....wow...
 
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sarumbear

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Incapable SOTA engineering (most likely) based on the myth that „discrete“ is (automatically) better.
What is discreet about it when there were so many op-amps that you can even roll?
 

cheapmessiah

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I love how this is the amp that people who own it say things like "A90 is a terrible amp, you use he6se or susvara and you can tell it has uncontrolled bass, but you plug those on the burson soloist and they shine" or "this amp works great with the susy plenty power, lots of control blah blah blah..." and it is just a poor performing amp that looks kind of good on the outside and has power.
 

Caliban

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I owned a soloist 3xp for a month or so, ergonomics (menues) was awful, sluggish volume control, dc-offset was impossible to zero out - it continues to drift when you put the cover back on due to further heating up. And on top of it all it lacks output protection.
That means for instance that if one of those fancy homebrew op-amps fail (or if you try out some exotic OPs that goes into oscillation) , you could be injecting a large ammount of dc/ ultrasonic crap in your precious headphones.
This is a bad design indeed.
I sold it as soon as I realized how crappy it was. Now I have an HPA4, and it has volume acceleration, no offset problems, and dc-protection, I would call that a keeper.
 
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odyo

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woah

Subjective people worship this amp.
 

asrUser

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Doodski

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woah

Subjective people worship this amp.
There's actually a lot to like but it's so poorly done. :facepalm: It's maybe serviceable with those well mounted/cooled outputs, the rolling OP amps is good for the rolling crowd. It has a bit of a heavy duty car audio amp look to it and some dig that stuff. USD $1200 is just wayyy too much.
 

PeteL

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What I find very telling tough is how far down this amp is in the SINAD chart, and Yet Amir couldn't detect any audible distortion or anything wrong with it.
 

SlothRock

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What I find very telling tough is how far down this amp is in the SINAD chart, and Yet Amir couldn't detect any audible distortion or anything wrong with it.

What do you find telling about that?
 

sarumbear

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SlothRock

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The objective value of engineering for ultra low distortion is just theoretical, no demonstrated audible benefit.

True. The DC offset is the thing that scares me the most about accidentally damaging my headphones but if this measures so poorly yet there is no audible distortion present, why does that end up mattering?
 

Doodski

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Can you list a few?
It appears to be all exposed when opened and for some buyers that is a good thing.
The PCB red color and other colored components create interest.
OP amp rolling is good for many peeps and here they have a whole system of that stuff ready to roll.
Some dual power supply thing might be more geek heaven to delve into.
The case appears to be nice and heavy duty.
Everything appears to be firmly/tightly mounted on the PCB including those aligned/misaligned jacks.
The components are manageable in size and easy to see.
For a noob this is geek heaven.
It's lay'd out in a fairly logical manner. If a service manual is available that would make it more valuable.
If somebody could figure out how to RGB this thing that would be ace.
index.php
 

sarumbear

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It appears to be all exposed when opened and for some buyers that is a good thing.
The PCB red color and other colored components create interest.
OP amp rolling is good for many peeps and here they have a whole system of that stuff ready to roll.
Some dual power supply thing might be more geek heaven to delve into.
The case appears to be nice and heavy duty.
Everything appears to be firmly/tightly mounted on the PCB including those aligned/misaligned jacks.
The components are manageable in size and easy to see.
For a noob this is geek heaven.
It's lay'd out in a fairly logical manner. If a service manual is available that would make it more valuable.
If somebody could figure out how to RGB this thing that would be ace.
index.php
Do you list these as positives for people who ASR aims to educate or for you?
 

cheapmessiah

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The objective value of engineering for ultra low distortion is just theoretical, no demonstrated audible benefit.
True that, but theres also the counter part to that, why not just do a good permorming amp, like topping, smsl and so many others have demonstrated its possible and just create a defeatable filter that "rounds" the tonality lowering the highs and lows (which is the real difference between a linear amp and this) and an analog second harmonic distortion generator that you can set to your liking and voila, you have an amp that does it all, has a sound signature you can tailor to your brand and has actual features, not constrains, that you can justify its price on.
 

Doodski

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Do you list these as positives for people who ASR aims to educate or for you?
For neither. It's a great piece to play with, change things, and maybe try to overcome it's horrible test specs. There's peeps/enthusiasts that dig this sort of cult status or whatever this gear has and they dig changing things for what they imagine are the better. I made a conscious decision a few months ago to not hassle OP amp rollers and MOD'ers because they are just into that scheme of things and for many this is their way of getting educated in electronics. So I don't see the Burson tested here as being a throw away. It has uses for some people and some of those OP amp rolling peeps are here at ASR I think going from what I've read. As this unit has lethal to headphones output power capability I imagine for some peeps that makes it better/more exciting for them and the amp is then held to a higher regard. I don't think forcing OP amp rollers into the closets is a goal. They should be able to come forth and request help with stuff so they can self educate.
 

PeteL

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True that, but theres also the counter part to that, why not just do a good permorming amp, like topping, smsl and so many others have demonstrated its possible and just create a defeatable filter that "rounds" the tonality lowering the highs and lows (which is the real difference between a linear amp and this) and an analog second harmonic distortion generator that you can set to your liking and voila, you have an amp that does it all, has a sound signature you can tailor to your brand and has actual features, not constrains, that you can justify its price on.
I don't see this amp having recessed highs and lows. I don't know where you got that from. I have no desire for flawed frequency response or a distortion generator. All that would cost money. Of course the law of diminishing return is what it is, but I don't think I have seen any Topping or SMSL produce that much power. What is "performing"? Performing in some extreme metrics that don't matter to no one? This amp performs in producing power, yes as Amir said, it's a niche need, but at least there is a niche part of the market that would benefit from this.
 

Robbo99999

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So did I. The missing DC offset regulation left me no other choice.
Yeah, that's just another problem to add to the others.......not to mention the philosophy of messing with opamps seems unnecessary as a starter.
 
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