Email sent to my audiophile friends:
Burson landed on my doorstep yesterday. Game changer! The best most detailed intimate hair-standing-on-end goosepimple lustful Musical experience I’ve had.
First off, it’s beautifully manufactured without a screw in sight. The entire body is a heatsink (https://www.bursonaudio.com/about-us/the-cool-case/). The volume knob is notched and goes to 99 (ridiculous). I have yet to go over 30 – but you easily could with no distortion – just too loud. As y’all know I like to document volume levels on my albums. It was easy to do on my old Burson (which was not reference level): I would keep increasing the volume until the high end (usually piano) became too bright/brittle. My max volume on old Burson was half-way maxed, so the new Burson has much more power. With this unit, the high-end never gets brittle – just gets louder and stays balanced with the rest of the frequency spectrum.
Detail. Did someone say detail? Wicked scary – like surreal. I’m hearing detail (like breathing, humming, chairs creaking) in old Bill Evans albums I’ve never heard quite clearly before. Listened to The Idea of North Evidence album – the one we all know well. I know this like the back of my ABC. It sounded, well, just different. SOOO many more timbres to the voices and pinpoint placement in the soundstage (think 5 degrees NW and 3 feet forward for alto, 17 degrees SE and 2 feet rear for tenor etc).
Soundstage. In all directions/dimensions. HUGE! Not sure how this is done on headphones.
Bass. Liquid deep responsive. Upright bass is woody and (again) detailed. NIN was orgasmic – could clearly hear/feel the bottom of that electric bass thingee.
Midrange. Given my experience with Idea of North – timbre-ey. The midrange has so many timbres/overtones (I know, I already said that – but don’t know any other way to describe it).
Treble. NO harshness on high and very-high end, even at volume. Cymbals are fantastic, especially when played very softly.
The old Burson along with a used pair of LCD-2 will now make their home in my CofC office.
j “Music is my drug” y