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Clicks. As is my custom with such machines, I first embedded the Conductor in my bedside headfi. Here it received coaxial signal from a 160GB iPod Classic in a Cambridge Audio iD100 digital dock via a Veloce cable and passed on analog to my Bakoon AMP-11R. The sound through the Bakoon and Burson 6.3mm ports was the bomb! Alas I noticed a lot of clicking from what seemed like a stuttering signal-lock relay. The handshake with the Cambridge was fine. Yet I did suffer intermittent brief dropouts always accompanied by the same clicking. John Delmo explained: "This behavior is entirely different from the issue faced by the Linnenberg [I'd sent this link to a review page which I thought dealt with the same issue and how its maker had resolved it - Ed]. The click comes from a protection relay controlled by the ESS9018. You may be able to replicate this by switching on or off audio equipment nearby or switching on or off a low-quality fan or hair dryer [affirmative with other hifi gear but also happening without anything being powered up or down at least in our flat - Ed]. When these events create sudden surge current, the relay activates to protect the chip.

various Burson prototypes from their Classic to Musician Series transition
"There is good reason why it didn't happen to your other DAC. The ESS9018 is more susceptible to both airborne electronic interference and power supply fluctuation than any other chip. Relatively it's over 50 - 100 times more sensitive than most DAC chips in this industry. During the development of our Conductor we reported this finding to the engineers at ESS Technology. They confirmed that it's a necessary characteristic of this chip in return for its much higher analytical power. We agreed with the latter and resolved to use this chip for our project. Subsequently we developed a 5-stage power filter network to keep the chip stable. Even so it was impossible to shield against all forms of external shocks. Like a good turntable you will therefore need to use the Conductor with a bit more care in return for its good sonic performance*."
Far from the first Sabre DAC I'd reviewed—there'd been the Resonessence Invicta, various Peachtree units and the Eastern Electric MiniMax—I'd never encountered this before. What user can control all power-line related events even with costly AC conditioners? Contemplating what if anything I could do about my situation, I moved the Conductor downstairs. Explore USB in the big system. It was only after encountering massive distortion that I remembered. Burson's Tenor TE8802 transceiver requires an OSX driver. I'd figured it still was on the iMac from the original Peachtree Audio Grand Integrated. Apparently not. Or did Burson use a different one? (Peachtree later abandoned this Tenor chip for XMOS to enjoy 64-bit Windows support and eliminate the unusual Mac driver requirement.)
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* A subsequent email clarified that John's wording only seemed to make customers responsible. He meant to stress that the Conductor might react to other gear being switched on/off while it plays. Alex later confirmed that the same click also marks signal lock, hence it occurs with video when forwarding to the next chapter, accessing special features or in the Mac starting/ending playlists. Relative to component switching, Alex explained that the only equipment to possibly trigger the protection relay would share a common mains spur with the Conductor. Multiple recurring clicks mid song were another issue altogether and something Burson would investigate.

As it turned out I still had the driver. I deleted it and installed Burson's. Now I had instant results. Clearly one size didn't fit all. And the Conductor proved integer-mode compatible too. I could run Audirvana 1.9.3.9 in its best-sounding mode. No more clicks either beyond first turn-on or when this software player logged on and off. These auditions ran the machine as fixed-output DAC to determine how the Aussies had elevated their digital game. Background check. During my Manger MSMs1 assignment I'd dusted off my Weiss DAC2 and Antelope Audio Zodiac Gold/Voltikus. The exercise had doubled as unintentional reminder. They and the Eximus DP1 are sonically roughly the same size though personal preference rates them in that exact ascending order. I'd thus skip on the former two and make the DP1 the litmus tester. For a left-field surprise I had NuForce's new $1.099 DA-100. Its triple-decker status of converter/pre with headfi facility would later juxtapose the Burson as combo threat like the April Music deck.

Big-ticket context. With AudioSolutions' flagship speakers wired up and TruLife Audio's single-stage 6H30-based Athena preamp having usurped my customary ModWright LS-100, the Conductor replaced my usual Esoteric/APL Hifi UX1/NWO-M. That runs an Audiophilleo 2 for USB mounted directly to its BNC input driven from a KingRex uArt Y cable. Bakoon's BPS-02 uninterruptible battery supply powers the 5V line. Since the XMOS transceiver of the Eximus is bus-powered too, I left the battery on the cable also for the Burson. Both were fed from GigaWatt's PC3-SE Evo.

New game. With the Conductor DAC Burson successfully adds air, top-down illumination and lengthier decays to their signature density and meatiness. To get culinary for a moment, Northern Indian food is rich, creamy and earthy. Thai or Szechwan cuisine celebrates the simultaneity of at least three of the four core flavors of sweet, salty, sour and bitter. In audio, transient bite must peacefully coexist with the chewiness of lingering chords. Legato and staccato. The latter's cream shouldn't dilute the spiky bite of the former or drown it out altogether. Exactly how to make warmth and articulate separation walk hand in hand remains one of hifi's perennial paradoxes. But it needn't be an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp or eventual satisfaction. With the Conductor, the pungent twanginess of Portuguese guitar and wiry snazz of plucked upright remain coincident with fluid vocal and con arco deliveries whilst venue reflections create their markers of recorded boundaries all in parallel. Yet for all this improved separation of discrete flavors—of chili, garlic, ginger, lemon grass, salt and honey to stay with Thai—they still pool properly into one unified meal or event. No analytical dissection here.
AudioSolutions Rhapsody 200 with FirstWatt SIT1, Blondie the cat lending two pointy ears...
Burson's previous converter had been heavier and darker. The move to Sabre injects light. As put above, that's a top-down affair. Material heaviness of profound bass and image density remains intact. The foundation hasn't changed. The Burson building stands where it always has. But now it's got skylights. That on a blueprint is it. With this renovation scheme the Conductor joins club Eximus & Co. It and the Korean performed neck to neck. Simon Lee's machine was a tad more silvery, more sharply focused. A popular word is crisp. The close to half-priced wonder from Down Under countered with deeper tone saturation. Like bipolars versus Jfets. Except now they were members of the same club. Brothers from the same mother. In headfi terms the Conductor was a cross between the Audez'e LCD-2 and HifiMan HE6.

Substituting the NuForce DA-100—another integer-happy unit—went lighter on the cream, heavier on the chili. If we apply populist assumptions on what high resolution implies, this machine most played to that. It's an edgier needlier sound with stronger focus on leading edges, lower weighting of sustain. This punches up image outlines and apparent contrast. Like moving Photoshop's level cursors for black and white inward, it also diminishes intermediate values. Curiously that slightly hyper-realist extra relief is what many ascribe to ESS silicon. Yet here the machine to actually run on Sabre fuel was far closer to a BB 1794A implementation. And perhaps as Burson claim, avoiding the popular multi-parallel use of the 8-channel Sabre shifts this type of hail-on-a-tin-roof effect. The HA-160D had erred on the other side. It rained fuzzy golf balls on a thatched roof. The Conductor spices up transparency with a more developed treble. It also resolves deeper down into the creases. Yet it refuses to cross over into needle turf. The upshot? It's still the Burson sound I originally described for the HA-160D. It's simply been modernized very smartly. For money talk you pay 61 cents on the Eximus dollar. Curmudgeons sour on Burson's move to $1.850 will throw a hissy fit. Then they aim elsewhere like forum flamers who are caught in a lie.