Burson Conductor 160D USB DAC silver

The Conductor Virtuoso is a USB DAC, Headphone Amp and Preamplifier. Most enthusiasts use its DAC and amplifier to drive their prized headphones with one beautifully-built, modestly-priced component. With over 4 watts of power on tap the Conductor Virtuoso will drive any headphone with ease. The Conductor Virtuoso’s headphone amp section is essentially the Soloist which reviewers have raved about. Or use the Conductor Virtuoso’s preamp functions to make it the center of a headphone and speaker-based desktop system with headphone option.

How Virtuoso is it?

Burson has significantly upgraded and refined previous generations of the Conductor. There are now a stunning 100-steps of volume control with a new, easy-to-read display. When the Conductor Virtuoso is on the volume indicators appear on the face of the thick, antiresonant aluminium front plate.

You can choose from two interchangeable DAC boards with different sonic characteristics and the modular design makes for no-fuss upgrades. As always, Burson eschews densely-packed opamps and designs all discrete circuitry for superior tonality, clarity and a lower noise floor.

The remote control is worthy of the Burson badge, carved from solid aluminium with no visible screws. The touch and feel of Burson products matches their irresistible sound that pulls you into the music in a visceral, exciting way.

Cleaner Power Means Higher Resolution

Ever notice how your system sounds better in the evening or weekends?

The Vault

Sometimes called the Vault by our customers, the 6mm Resonance Free Aluminum (RFA) enclosures are constructed from precision-machined panels.

DAC Option: PCM1793 DAC

Burr Brown PCM1793

Burson has worked with the Burr Brown PCM1793 DAC chip for over six years. It’s available as an alternative to the ESS SABRE32 DAC in the Conductor Virtuoso.

We’ve always felt the 1793 was an underrated chip so we developed a new FET input stage with very few components in the signal path. As a result the sound is irresistibly transparent and musical. The 1793 has the classic Burr Brown sound; it’s warm, engaging, relaxing, full of texture and a bit analog sounding.

Measurement

Input impedance: 36.5 KOhms
Frequency response: ± 1 dB 0 – 50Khz
Signal to noise ratio: >96dB
THD: <0.03% at 30ohm with 1W ouput
Channel separation: >73dB
Output power: 4W at 16 Ohms
Input impedance: >8K Ohm @ 1W
Output impedance (Headphone Amp): 3 Ohm
Output impedance (Line Level): 30 Ohm
Power dissipation: 35W internal, regulated power supply

DAC Specification

Channel Separation: 140 dB @ 1KHz, 130 dB @ 20KHz
THD+N: 0.0005% @ 1KHz, 0dBFS
COAX & Toslink / SPDIF : 24 bits / 44.1K, 48K, 88.2K, 96K, 176.4K, 192KHz

USB Specification

OS Requirement: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Mac OS X
USB : 24 bits / 44.1K, 48K, 88.2K, 96K, 176.4K, 192KHz
Support up to 24bit @ 192Khz with 10ppm low jitter clock
Asynchronous Transfer Mode

Inputs

1 x USB Connection
1 x Coaxial RCA (Support up to 24bit @ 192Khz)
1 x Toslink / SPDIF (Support up to 24bit @ 192Khz)
2 x RCA line level input

Outputs

1 x headphone jacks 6.35mm
1 x RCA Pre out
1 x RCA DAC out

General

Weight: app. 6 kg
Colour: silver anodized aluminium
Dimensions: 265 x 255 x 80 mm