INTRODUCTION My acquaintance with Burson Audio products began not so long ago, but it was quite intensive. In 2020 I was looking for a replacement for my home headphone amplifier and quite nice and compact Soloist 3XP caught my eye. I’ve changed several Burson devices through some years and as a result Soloist 3X GT has taken the main place of my desktop headphone amplifiers (the company’s previous flagship). The amplifier completely fulfills the task to drive all existing headphones. I think it would be difficult to find an appropriate...

INTRO Many thanks to Thibault from Earsonics for providing a sample for this review. This is not the first product of Earsonics I have an experience with. SM64, ES3, S-EM6 V2, ES5 – all these IEMs I owned in the past for a long period of time, especially my favorite S-EM6 V2 which I owned for about 3 years - the first reference tuning IEM of the company that time. So, I can differentiate between Earsonics “house sound” and something new and not typical. Frankly speaking I did not know what to expect when I was waiting for ONYX. The only thing I...

INTRODUCTION My journey with Burson Audio started a year ago when I decided to upgrade my home desktop system to drive Snorry NM-1 more efficiently (TOTL planars of a local manufacturer that time). After some deep market investigation my choice fell on Soloist 3XP and Composer 3XP. Usually, I audition everything before I make any purchase decision. Unfortunately, there was no possibility that time to go to the dealer and listen to any of Burson Audio product since they just started their partnership as Burson dealer and had nothing in stock yet...

Many of us know that ifi audio has built their reputation primarily making high quality DACs, amplifiers for portable and desktop applications, as well as power and digital signal enhancements. It's time to explore a new device designed to improve and manage the digital signal within your home network now. This is not the first step of the company in this direction but perhaps the first separate device if you do not consider the ZEN Blue. Thank you for the demo sample provided by ifi audio through Qvinta-audio, their distributor in Russia. Here is...

BACKGROUND My first acquaintance with Snorry products happened a couple of years ago, that time it was SI-1 mk2. I was quite skeptical on the performance of those not very expensive planar magnetic headphones. That time I had HD800S in combination with Violectric amp and DAC. I also had closed planars from MrSpeakers in my home collection. I could never imagine that these headphones could fully replace the top-end Sennheiser headphones. I ordered them on my friend’s advice who highly praised Snorry for its natural sound. But I couldn't believe...

I will try to share my thoughts briefly to cover just the most important points. I personally do not like reviews with a lot of text and I usually jump right to a Sound section. This is what many of us usually do I think) Nevertheless, I’d like to mention that Etymotic products are not new for me. I owned almost all models of the S, SR, SE series in the past and some of them for two times (ER4SR). I do keep the ES3SE today - in fact, this is the only IEM left in my collection after I completely switched to full-size headphones 1,5-2 years ago. Of...

Preamble There is no end to iFi audio’s surprises on how they read my (and, of course, not only my) mind. I think it is a matter of the right marketing strategy and understanding of customer needs. In my opinion they do not just release some new products on the market to compete with other brands but have a clear understanding of why and for whom they are doing it. They do not just chase after numbers and the best measurements results just for the sake of results, but first they think several steps ahead of how this or that product will be...

Intro Disclaimer: ES5 were purchased used and went through the shell repair in France – special thanks to SAV (ES service) for great customer service and fast repair. This is not the first and the only Earsonics product I own. I own S-EM6 V2 for more than 2 years. “The first contact” happened in 2013. That was SM64, then ES3 later in 2017. I had some experience with the original S-EM6 in between. “Real love” happened with the 2nd version of the 6BA IEM 2 years ago which were perfectly tuned towards neutrality and reference sound signature. You...

Preamble " A white crow" in Russian language idiomatically refers to someone who stands out of a group, looks different, behaves differently. This is exactly the case for the S-EM6 V2 and the rest of Earsonics family. Let me explain where I'm coming from. First of all, I’m not a professional reviewer. I don’t have a huge "fleet" of various IEMs, sources, and cables. And this will be my second review in English on head-fi. The first one was dedicated to a Japanese portable DAC/Amp and its Limited version became my "end of the game source". The 6...

Why Vantam? I was looking for a portable DAC/Amp preferably on PCM chip which is capable to drive both low impedance IEMs and sensitive portable headphones. I guess I found what I need. Here are my thoughts…shortly.   Let's start from its specification (in Japanese but I think it should be clear what they are talking about). My particular unit is on LME49860. There are some other versions of the Vantam with different op-amps.     Package   Very poor. Just Vantam and one usb to micro usb cable. That is basically it. This is nothing for the...