My eureka moment came when I read that the Burson Playmate Everest came standard from the factory with the Classic in I/V stage and the Vivid in LPF stage. I don’t like the sound, it sounds lifeless, muffled, not exciting. With the Classic in LPF position, I found myself raising the volume on my DBX to -3dB or even -1dB and up to 36-40 on the Playmate when listening to headphones. With my 32 Ohm ‘phones, the volume is around 28-32 on High Gain. With my speakers, the Playmate is set at high gain on volume 99, and -6dB on my DBX input. I don’t know if the Classic pumps out less current, but I found myself reaching for the volume knob more often. I ran the amp through a burn in cycle for a week, I didn’t listen to it, just using it to burn in a new IEM I got at that time. To be honest I feel it’s a downgrade from the Basic configuration. They sound alright, nothing wrong per se, but at the same time it doesn’t sound right. I tried swapping the opamps to find out more, first with the Vivid in I/V stage and the Classic in LPF stage. Carlos from Burson Audio kindly sent me another pair so I can compare the Basic sound to the ‘upgraded’ sound with all-V6 opamps. I have owned one V6 Classic and one V6 Vivid. It extracts detail from the music, it is transparent and accurate. In its Basic configuration, the Playmate sounds clean and energetic.

And many more, all in lossless formats (FLAC, WAV) and 320kbps mp3 that I ripped myself from original CDs.

Jennifer Warner – Fool for the Look in Your Eyes.

Payung Teduh – Akad, and many more from them.

Daft Punk – Giorgio by Moroder, Lose Yourself to Dance.

I choose them because they represent open back, semi open, and closed back headphones construction. I built the speakers myself, and for reviewing the headphone amp section I am using Audio Technica ATH-AD500X, Samson SR850, and modded Edifier H840.

In order to give you a context, I’ll share with you the current state of my audio system: Everything is my own opinion and observations, and this is a long term review, so I no longer suffer from new toy syndrome. This post is dedicated for the review of the sound impressions. My previous post was a little bit of ‘unboxing’ and installation how-to kinda thing.

Flac payung teduh