BURSON BUFFER

[consistent]

Audio enthusiasts generally have a healthy interest, although cynical at times, around new bits of kit and gear that pop up from time to time in the audio market. When you weed your way through the snake charmers and medicine men you occasionally find something that catches your eye and you want to know more.

I'm inquisitive but I get somewhat disappointed when I find what I thought was new, innovative and maybe a little different is just a 'pig with lipstick'! I have recently been in the 'pig pen' with the Burson Buffer (AB160). Yes I know buffers are nothing new and a few well know brands have had their shot a building one. I read some rather rave reviews and few others that said the BB did not do much for them in their audio set-up. So I assumed that this device had the potential to do something. I thought I would 'buy before I try'. I bought one from Burson in Melbourne Australia, where they are made. Burson have suppliers in the US and Canada, one well known supplier is Parts Connexion www.partsconnexion.com.

The box finally got to my address and I opened and hooked the up BB AB160. I thought it was a little heavy for what you get and looked rather sexy so I was pleased with its aesthetics. This device can sit between your source (CD et al) and your pre-amp or between you pre-amp and amp. I have tried both ways.

The first thing I noticed when I drove it through my 'powerless shunt' (similar to Axiom passive), that I made some months ago, was the immediate clarification of highs and lows. Things had more definition and punch and some bloating in the bottom end had gone. There was also better octave to octave integration and yes when you start to get excited you begin to hear more. I think it has to do with adrenalin levels but who cares if it makes you feel good...and it wasn't illegal!

I put it away and then came back to it a few hours later and started to shift my bits of gear through it. All improved! I did not want to believe at first so I trotted my 17 year old son out to play the 'blind tester' (you can use 2 different sources or 2 different pre's in the hookup). AB testing is made easy and I did find out that the BB AB160 does not add much, if anything, to the final sound because I could tell significant differences between my bits of gear. I haven't been able to do this noting this sort of significance. My son could also tell the difference and not knowing what he was listening too (other than his music) he picked the BB as sounding better in 5 out of 6 trials. I tried Altmann Dac, Cyrus CD8, a few different shunts with different values, Morrison ELAD and a rather intersting Class A tube pre-amp. The amp I used in all trials was the Pass Aleph 30 but will try a few others I have. Speakers are of course 2004 Khorns moded with Crites tweeters and a tractrix to a Altec 288 16.

So apart from a good weight and nice looking box you get a device that actually works its magic on system to system impedance and delivers better clarity, imagery and the sensation of improved speed and attack that I think Burson need to rename this the 'Audio Broom 160'...it simply just cleans things up!

Check out www.bursonaudio.com and see what they have on offer they also build amps!

Cheers

Steve

p.s. hopefully my picture loads...I always have trouble in this forum must be because I am soooo farrrr awayyyyyyy

[thebes]

Pretty cool report so I'm bumping it up. As far as I can make out these buffers are for linestage applications.

As I understand it, buffers are designed to handle output impedance mismatches between components, primarily lower budget cdp's and dac's.

Sounds like you have very good gear so I'm wondering why this is influencing the music.

I hope our technical gurus check in on this one. Mark, especially. I'd be interested in a wider range of thoughts and opinions. Thanks for posting it.

[consistent]

Thanks Thebes,

I'm no techo but I believe this device, like the others gone before it, drops the impedance between where it sits. It (in theory) is not suppose to influence what you hear with low impedance output devices such as what I have (Cyrus and Altmann have been tested at around 47ohms) but it does! Burson make a particular cool op amp which they use in the box and it has a high s/n ratio which also helps. They told me that it works really well with highly efficient speakers where passive pre-amps or flea powered amps (such as tubes) are used to drive the speakers and they were right. The box doesn't cost much in the scheme of things.

Cheers

[SET12]

Hi,

I'll go one step further here with some twists.

I used the Bursons Discrete Op Amps in my Highly Modified Sony X77ES CDP to drive my amps direct.

I have a thread here

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=185971

I absolutely love them but the need break in time as Burson states. I also feel they benefit from large supplies (I increased mine on an already $2000 player by a factor of 10x) as they use a lot of current so my CDP has about 150,000uf's with the Burson's running off Muse electrolytic's which are as nice as premium film caps if I do say so myself.

Resolution is astounding, like I can hear the texture of master tapes very easily! from coarse to fine grain. The stage is very wide and deep with excellent layering. The Bass is very articulate and very powerful.

I leave my CDP on 24/7 so they now have a few thousand hours of idle time and of course lots of playing time.

An Opus 21 was compared to my Burson Sony. The Opus was smoother but couldn't compete in all the Sony's areas of finest. Most notably resolution,depth and width and especially authority.

My next mod to it is to install a new Burson clock for low jitter which should be a dramatic improvement as older CDP's have quite a bit of jitter as the Opus is very low.

My supply mods are included in my thread which you may find very interesting!

Cheers

SET12

.

[consistent]

Hi SET12

I understand where you are coming from, their op amps really do the trick and I know of a few who have 'modded' some old boxes with o/s results. These things also work their magic in the buffer and what you are noticing so am I. My Cyrus player comes with its own separate power supply and I didn't think it possible to improve much more and I was even wondering if I did what you did if further improvements could be made??

Thanks

[SET12]

Hi consistent,

I am not familiar with Cyrus players so I really don't know what to tell you there! My CDP also has a very beef supply as it has two "R" Core's for seperate Digital and Analog supplies.

I do know this that the Bursons want voltage as well and 12 volts doesn't quite cut it with them I have heard. I have 15 volts after my discrete regulators and now that you got me thinking I might run them from the 20 volt supply bypassing the regulators altogether yeah, yeah thats an idea I'll have to look at!

Anyway as much as I like them I probably should of tried some of the latest Op Amp IC's as reports are they are really getting to be good.

So the simplest and cheapest thing to do is pull the IC's out an install IC sockets preferably one's with gold contacts.

The thing about the Bursons is they use 20-25 ma each module total I have 6 modules thats 120-150 ma instead of IC's maybe pulling 30ma.

So if you give what the Burson's want they will deliver! is my motto.

Otherwise I don't think I would go with them meaning if the supply isn't up to the task I think they can come across as lean sounding from some reports that I have heard but they were slightly lean for me the first 100hrs. Then I added more supply along with a unique mod to my regulators eliminating the feedback which brought substantial warmth.

If you install them you'll want to put a CD in the player and let it run a week straight before you give it a serious listen. Almost all the sites that I visited for people that really liked them had their power supply capacitance beefed up! Another area to play with is coupling caps which I haven't played with yet as they would be expensive as well due to the being some 10 uf's and I am picky today on my caps like my Duelunds on my crossovers are nearly $300 for two 1uf caps!

The thing is if you decide to give them a shot you'll have to work with them! They are meant to be solder in and play but I don't think it's as simple as that!

One thing is for sure! I sure am glad I got the schematic for my CDP as it makes things much easier.

I am using the single modules for my Buffer out and a pair of Dual modules for the Analog filters.

I started with the singles and went in stages.

So they are very impressive after my efforts and they could be for you as well!

It is possible to put the Bursons on a pined IC and use a socket for them which I have given thought to as well!

In the end a person's mileage will vary but mine has taken me pretty far!

My purpose was to give some updates to compete with $10,000 CDP's that I have heard, and does it? I think so!

So you'll never know, unless you travel down that road!

Here's some more photo's

Making room for more capacitance by removing the Balanced Out Module and utilizing all available space.



SET12

[SET12]

Burson told me that it works really well with highly efficient speakers where passive pre-amps or flea powered amps (such as tubes) are used to drive the speakers and they were right. The box doesn't cost much in the scheme of things.

Cheers

It works for me! Driving CDP direct to my 10 watt Mono Blocks.

One thing about Flea Powered Tube Amps !

Many are wimpy simply by design and do not have to be. Mostly due to slow supplies of having to much DCR in the supply path.

These are nearly zero, no regulators or chokes or resistors, if one wants chokes one should use the lowest DCR possible IMO, remember a 1H choke is equal to 750 ohms ACR with a full wave rectified power supply.

The above amps are more powerful "watt for watt" then many high powered SS amplifiers and this includes some 200 watt/channel designs. And surprisingly even sounding more extended in the frequency extremes then some SS amps. I can't tell you how many times I have LOL

As to preamps, I don't use them mostly because they get the way, and because I can't afford a 5 to $10,000 linestage I had the opportunity to listen to the very popular Peach II a well made linestage, the first thing that I heard with it was a dramatic loss of transparency, as to dynamics it was loose and no more dynamic then what the Bursons were already doing.

Its a lot of fun!

Especially after 35yrs of audio.

Cheers

SET12

[Clipped and Shorn]

I just use one of these:

http://www.raystoreylighting.com/chem/images/BUNSEN%20BURNER.jpg

zx

[SET12]

Thats Good [Y] [H]

[consistent]

Hi

Cyrus CD8 http://www.cyrusaudio.com/product.asp?ProductID=29 and power supply http://www.cyrusaudio.com/product.asp?ProductID=78. You can see the size of the boxes I am dealing with.

By the way the shunts that I make (see http://luminousaudio.com/axiom.html for an example) are generally better than most pre-amps under $4k. There is only a single resistor in the path between input and output with a good pot used to control output. The people that have come into possession of these little wonders are simple astounded at what they can achieve for a couple of hundred bucks or as DIY with good parts maybe $100.

All the best

[SET12]

I couldn't see much really, I couldn't get access to the manual as they wanted me to fill out a form full of stuff.

And yes I to have some shunt attenuators and I agree they are a far superior way of controlling the volume.

Perhaps you could post some pictures?

The power supply is nice but for me regulators which use feedback make the sound barren for me.

It looks like your supply uses 30,000ufs of a high quality caps which is good, I also use high quality as well but with 150,000ufs isolated and in various sizes for a very natural relaxed sound. Regulators are anything but typically IMO.

As far as mains deviation I'll put it this way like I once read in a BAT White Paper on supplies for their preamp's. " If you were in a row boat and ten foot waves came a long you'd be swamped! But an Aircraft Carrier would never be swayed."

Although my CDP is still using them in various capacities. I have defeated the feedback in a pair of discrete regulators that supply the Burson's while maintaining the DC for them. The result was I a substantial increase in warmth. The Dac's run off the same supply but they have their own regulator.

The ripple that was on the supply for the Burson's using the regulators is now matched with the feedback eliminated and using a 10x increase in the supply.

And now I'm really going to check into getting the Burson's to run on 20 volts by eliminating the Discrete Regulators Series Pass DCR which drops the voltage to 15 volts. It is my experience that low DCR paths greatly enhance dynamics "its about moving energy"

This true of my SET Amps and not to mention my Klipsch Forte's by using an 8AWG Air Core Inductor one of the worlds largest manufactured. The bass is darn near like having a sub but better IMO because the Inductor covers more range 32hz to 700hz vs 20hz to 120hz mid and upper bass definition is phenomenal. Never again will I use wimpy inductors.

In the end everything works together.

Its all a lot of fun DIYing stuff and to each our own.

But, it's what I have learned in the process of DIYing that has brought satisfaction of our hobby to a new level for me without having to spend thousands!

Cheers

SET12

[consistent]

Hope this works

[consistent]

...and another...trying different pots and different resistors

[SET12]

Very Nice!

Here's a pair of mine

23 step about $50 off of ebay

SET12

[fini]

I just use one of these:

http://www.raystoreylighting.com/chem/images/BUNSEN%20BURNER.jpg

zx

Talk about bursting bubbles...

[SET12]

Pretty cool report so I'm bumping it up. As far as I can make out these buffers are for linestage applications.

As I understand it, buffers are designed to handle output impedance mismatches between components, primarily lower budget cdp's and dac's.

Sounds like you have very good gear so I'm wondering why this is influencing the music.

I hope our technical gurus check in on this one. Mark, especially. I'd be interested in a wider range of thoughts and opinions. Thanks for posting it.

Hi Thebes,

First I'd like to say I have enjoyed many of your post's.

To start out here's a link to one persons venture.

http://www.partsconnexion.com/t/Index/burson_opam4.html

I think your going to run in to many opinions.Very Pro for and not so Pro!

And personally I don't know that I would use them in an inexpensive CDP with out a hearty supply upgrade.

Simply because the current requirements are typically 4 times more per module 5ma vs 20-25ma for the Bursons.

I have heard reports of the Burson's sounding lean in some CDP's! I definitely beleive that its supply related!

Most CDP's barely have half of what I had stock in my CDP. And as you can see mine is very beefy, in fact my CDP approaches 40lbs.

I feel IC Op Amps have improved dramatically from what I have read.

But I will tell you the Bursons are a World Class Op Amp no doubt in my mind!

The resolution is simply astounding for me! Driving my 2 stage power amps CDP direct does tell me a lot! Along with World Class crossover components in my Fortes. I have a very simple but power full system.

I regard the Bursons like a Thoroughbred race horse not an once of fat on them just pure muscle with the power supply being the jockey!

What do I get?

I get a fantastic sound stage that is substantially wider than my 18ft living room wall. Part of this is due to my amps being able to portray this as well.

But I will tell tell you I had a Opus 21 here and it just couldn't compete with my CDP in this regard.

I also have great depth from the Burson's I had it before but not with the level of resolve at the back part of the stage especially.

The $4000 Opus sounded flat in comparison. My friend has gotten some $1700 worth of mods done so it should be interesting to hear it again.

One thing I can say about the Opus is it is extremely smooth. Smoother than my CDP substantially it seems, but that maybe related to resolving power which which is not quite to the level of the Sony Burson that I have, but to come back for an Opus Sony session again I will have the Burson low jitter clock installed which should be smoother sounding.

Another thing about the Opus was its foundation to the music! Here the Burson Thoroughbred as I call them or it just pulled ahead! In fact it wasn't even a comparison as it was just obvious.

Another thing I enjoy is the textures of music! I even enjoy listening to CD's made from analog master tapes. I enjoy listening to the grain of the tape going by the tape heads which is so easy to pick out from course to fine grain.

My goal was to upgrade my CDP to give me some of the $10,000 CDP performance that a few of my friends have. And I feel the player can hold its own with any $5000 CDP that I have heard easy enough while chasing the higher end stuff yet. I bought my player new in a box when it was 3yrs old for just $600 and now I have another $400 stuck into it. I have certainly gotten my mileage from it and not to mention a lot of bang for the buck!

Cheers

SET12

[Kudret]

Are you familiar with X33ES? I have one and I was wondering if it would be worhwhile to do these mods on a X33ES?

Kudret

[SET12]

Are you familiar with X33ES? I have one and I was wondering if it would be worhwhile to do these mods on a X33ES?

Kudret

No I am no familiar with the X33ES which of course is older than my player but it looks as though it has similar robust construction meaning that it probaly has the twin supplies like mine. Even the top cove is just like mine.

I have no doubt they can be a good candidate!

Also I see Burson has changed the board a bit making it some what more compact yet!

The nice thing about the Bursons is that even if the Sony passed away the Burson's can be pulled and used elseware for a passive preamp for instance or preamp with gain. And you could salvage the Sony's supply even for such a project.

I would purchase a schematic which you can get on line where I got mine for about $15 I think

http://www.servicemanuals.net/

Here's my CDP thread link again showing whats envolved. It looks more intimidating then what it really is but with a service manual it will make you even more confident. And don't get me wrong you do have to be careful a local technician should have any trouble.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=185971

And you can watch a video of a technician doing an install here

Here was my first install (buffer) before I added the dual modules(digital filters)

Here's the player in its stock form as I was looking it over and doing some planning.

In the end it has been a real pleasure to me but ones miliage may vary depending on the CDP and other add ons like a supply increase which really was not to much more $. For super charging the Burson's!

SET12