Усилители для наушников — Burson Audio Conductor Stellar

The Conductor Stellar from Burson Audio combines a pure Class-A headphone amplifier, a preamplifier and a DAC built on the ESS ES9039PRO in one desktop chassis. It carries a dedicated IEM output alongside its full-size headphone sockets, is Roon Tested, and was listed at USD 3,499. The brand sells it in Standard, Deluxe and Max versions that differ in op-amps, power supply and remote control.

Key specs that matter

In high gain the balanced XLR output delivers 8 W into 32 ohm, 5 W into 100 ohm, 3.5 W into 150 ohm and 1.1 W into 300 ohm, with the single-ended socket giving roughly half, such as 4 W into 32 ohm. The IEM mode is scaled far lower at 1 W balanced and 500 mW single-ended into 32 ohm. Headphone output impedance is 0.5 ohm. Burson quotes THD below 0.0015 percent, frequency response of 0 to 55 kHz within 1 dB, and SNR above 105 dB in high gain and above 100 dB at the IEM output. Inputs are an XMOS USB-C port handling PCM to 768 kHz and native DSD512, Bluetooth 5.0 on a Qualcomm CSR8675 with LDAC, aptX HD and AAC, optical and coaxial to 24-bit and 192 kHz, plus a microphone input for a headset. The case measures 210 x 200 x 75 mm and weighs about 5 kg.

Engineering and use context

The DAC section runs the eight-core ES9039PRO and offers 24 digital filters voiced to the analogue stage. Each amplifier channel uses four Onsemi MJE15032 transistors in discrete output stages fed by Burson's Max Current supply, and the Class-A design idles at about 60 W. Gain has two levels. The Standard version uses NE5532 op-amps, the SP01 Silent Power module and a 24 V 5 A adapter without a remote. The Deluxe moves to V7 Vivid PRO discrete op-amps, the SP02 module with an LT3045 regulator rated at 0.8 microvolt RMS noise, the Super Charger 5A and a remote with about 10 m range. The Max adds the Fusion Core 24 V, a 480 W GaN supply switching at 1 MHz.

Pairing

Preamp and line outputs are both provided on XLR and RCA, with 1 ohm and 20 ohm output impedances for the pre and DAC stages, so the unit can drive powered monitors or a separate stereo power amplifier in addition to headphones. Both preamp and line connections are duplicated in balanced and single-ended form, so a system can use either cable standard without adapters. Headphone sockets comprise XLR, 6.35 mm and 3.5 mm, covering planar and high-impedance dynamic models through to sensitive in-ear monitors on the IEM output.

Alternatives

The Burson Conductor GT4 is another headphone amplifier and DAC from the brand's Conductor series.