Like our 20w/30Ω Cen.Grand Silver Fox, the Soloist 3X GT is one of headfi's most powerful solid-state amps. The tag on its spiked collar reads 'no can left unopened'. Whilst digital continues to change, the all-analog Soloist sees itself beyond time. Come what may, being virtually load agnostic has us all set; at least until Ragnarok when some unreasonable extremist bows The Humdinger which still needs more power to come on song. That's unlikely though; and not something we as consumers should condone in the first place. Why reward insanity with our hard-earned cash?

As far as the End Times go, this piece of kit aims to be with us until the curtain drops. With that attitude and ambition, €2.5K appear appropriate. And, Burson have certainly been around to instill confidence. Our first Burson review dates back to 2006. That we haven't covered the brand in a bit will be made up for with today's 2-in-1. A fully burnt-in Soloist flew in from Oz to forward to the UK's Elite Audio afterwards. The new SE-type monos would arrive when born and their sonic commentary append to these pages in due time. The Grand Tour even grander. For cans to open then drink I had Audeze LCD-2/XC, Final D8000/Sonorous III/Sonorous X, HifiMan HE-1000/Susvara and Meze 99 Neo/109 Pro. Susvara represents bullish loads, Final X and Meze Pro lightweights for a bit of a stretch. I even had some flagship HifiMan IEM. Sticking ultra-efficient in-ears to a very powerful stationary amp simply strikes me as silly so I won't do it. Just because one could doesn't mean one should.

By October the rapture had begun Down Under if one wished to store Burson kit on the Mothership stand available 2 [$400] or 4 [$600] high. Be taken up and enjoy the view. A wire channel helps keep that neat. If you were still uncertain about the color coding, the headamp's red controls signify the fully balanced version, copper/gold the single-ended variant. It's how the Soloist responds to different customer needs and insures that either way, the circuit is fully optimized.

Stand dims are 40 x 26 x 25/44cm DxWxH to also suit things like iFi's Neo/Pro and Singxer gear.

John Delmo of Burson: "We'll ship your Soloist 3X GT this week. There are two reasons for the delay. First we did some firmware updates and wanted your unit to include these minor adjustments. Second we have burnt it in so that it can hit the road running when you receive it. To facilitate your review, here's some basic information. The unit draws about 90 watts on idle. Therefore the power supply or included Burson Super Charger 5A should plug directly into the wall to optimize performance. As it uses a lot of current especially at start-up, we don't recommend any power conditioners or battery banks. GT is designed to turn off after 20 minutes of idle. This complies with EU regs so please don't panic if it turns off after that cup of tea. You can turn off this function from its on-screen menu. If you need to take its cover off for photos, the unit won't turn on with the top off. That's part of its active cooling. The GT has three gain levels and you should dial it back to 0 before changing gain as it goes from 1W low to 5W medium to 10W high and the jump especially between low and high is substantial. Headphone cross-feed obviously only works on the headphone outputs, speaker balance only on the preamp outputs."

Gold Note remote purely for size reference.

Tracking my shipment's 10-day progress through the FedEx system, I saw Thomastown then Melbourne then Matraville as the final export hub in Oz. What had to be one long flight, the next stop was already Tremblay/France, then Roissy Charles de Gaulle. That just left a small skip to Dublin/Ireland then Shannon on our west coast. Et voilà, out for delivery on the familiar white FedEx van; two boxes in fact. Huh? Ha. The Super Charger in its display packaging shipped separately. It was roughly half the size of the Chinese LYD 'laptop' brick with figure-8 cord of the main pack. The real surprise was the cute but classy metal wand. It's no longer than a fish finger—blessed childhood memories—and rather more skinny. Unexpected too was the small plastic box with six JRC 5532D opamps. Burson's own chimney diskretniks would probably 6-up those in a hurry. But it ain't bragging if true; and now I could ascertain whether it was and how. Published photos never had me appreciate before how the upright brackets are actually an inline quad to put two retainers on each cheek. Now we both know.