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Conductor 3 Performance worth it in 2022?

Tej

Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2022
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hello, amazing folks of audioscience community. being silently reliant on this forum for my speaker/amp choices. completely new to this expensive and additive hobby :)
but thanks to this forum i am having a blast with my new speakers. unfortunately cant use them during evening/night, that is when headphones is a must.

I am looking to upgrade my headphone amp from my very old denon dac/amp that starts to show wear and tear.
having bad experience with chinese products so far(sending a dac to repair after weeks of talking with their customer service), searching for something different.

There is a sale for old Burson Conductor 3 Performance in nearby Tokyo store, i believe its older model (2020?), it is priced between zen can and can hfm that i am also considering.
but burson looks so much nicer :)
its the same price as newly released chinese smsl/topping product. but i am kinda want go different route.

I plant to use amp with hifiman ananda. dt 880 pros.

is burson 3 older model worth it in 2022? i know they released a bunch of new models, but i cant afford them.
 

jae

Major Contributor
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Dec 2, 2019
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Burson products while popular in audiophile circles have measured poorly or mediocre at best here, so unless proven otherwise I don't think many people can give you any sort of suggestion on here in good faith to go that route.

What was the product/company you had a poor experience with? One poor experience does not mean future ones will be.

It depends what you budget is. I would say Topping DX5/EX5 is the best bet. Or DX3 Pro Plus if that's out of your budget.
 
OP
T

Tej

Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2022
Messages
6
Likes
4
Burson products while popular in audiophile circles have measured poorly or mediocre at best here, so unless proven otherwise I don't think many people can give you any sort of suggestion on here in good faith to go that route.

What was the product/company you had a poor experience with? One poor experience does not mean future ones will be.

It depends what you budget is. I would say Topping DX5/EX5 is the best bet. Or DX3 Pro Plus if that's out of your budget.
I bought SMSL SU-9n dac, which was nice first two weeks. than it almost broke my speakers. started to produce very bad crackling noise. tried everything, spend weeks talking with the customer service of company(aoshida) that sells smsl and topping products on amazon here in japan. they refused to change product (by the time i tried everything 30 days of refund passed), made me send it to china for repairs. (probably will take weeks before i see it back).
dx5 is in my budget, it sold by the same company. so i am a little bit hesitant to go that route again. if it was any other japanese dealer, they would change it on the spot, but chinese companies man...

as for dx5, i already see bad reviews on japanese amazon here - one guy has problem with update loop, another experienced something similar to my problem. seems like they have power plug related problems. so i am hesitant...

I don't think many people can give you any sort of suggestion on here in good faith to go that route.
Yeah, I am reading through the reviews. But for a newbie like me, I am mostly lost in all those numbers... and also I get the impression that measurements is not everything :) even on this forum.
 
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