Burson have announced that they have completed the R&D of our 3rd generation Conductor., which is their reference class headphone amp, USB DAC and preamp, 3 in 1. They say “is a major update from previous Conductor models”. The Conductor V2 headphone amp and pre-amp section are powered by a dedicated 70W transformer. Tuned to operate in pure Class A, it outputs over 8 Watt per channel into 16ohm, making the Conductor V2, claim Burson “one of the most powerful headphone amplifiers in the world, capable of driving any headphone”. On the digital front the Conductor V2 features the flagship ESS Sabre DAC, has completely new supporting circuitry and an independent power transformer. The new USB module features a digital interface from XMOS with their 8 core U6 chip supporting native DSD256 playback and up to 32bit depth.

Burson are yet to set a price for it. Instead, they have put the design on Indiegogo to seek community support. With enough contributions from the community, they are hoping to push the price as low as $999 USD for the analogue version (V2) and $1,499 USD of the fully equipped version (V2+). Burson have told us: “We want it to have a lower price so more audiophiles can own this truly amazing machine.”