Burl B2 Bomber DAC Review: Holy Sh**, This is Good

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by purr1n, Jul 14, 2020.

  1. Gungrave

    Gungrave New

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    If anyone is interested in a burl b2 bomber dac dm me :)
     
  2. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Toss it up on the sale forums here for all to see. Let us know condition, what output modules it has, does it have dante, etc.
     
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  3. Josh Schor

    Josh Schor Friend

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    Have had the chance to hear the Burl on my rig (thank you CeeTee) comparing it with the Gungnir A2 MB with unison
    The Burl is a great dac, its so engaging and fun to listen to, its a toe taper. It reminds me of the early dacs I had that Stan Warren built very "organic" with that distortion that sounds good. The Burls bass is lacking not quantity but quality compared to the Gungnir. Everything else, tonality, attack, detail is very close. The Gunginr to me is cleaner, less digital when compared head to head. The Burl has this density with each note that is amazing and so so engaging. One is not better then the other just different ways of presenting the music. I will be staying with the Gungnir it has less digititis for me and it has better, more defined and clearer bass. Really glad I got to hear this one
     
  4. Josh Schor

    Josh Schor Friend

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    The more I listen to the Burl the more I love it,, this is a tough one as both the Gungnir and the Burl are very good. The Burl has a blistering attack on each note that is amazing, decay is also very good, it presents a shimmering picture, so seductive. I think I need to listen more.
    Anyone know if there's a best sonic input for the Burl?
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2022
  5. Gazny

    Gazny MOT: ETA Audio

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    The best input is the one with the greatest peace of mind, or convenience.
    Try them all, half the fun and the other being pain.
    :punk: Let your ears decide.
     
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  6. Josh Schor

    Josh Schor Friend

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    This is a great dac, I decided to stay with the Gungnir and could easily live with the Burl. I like both equally. I was really taking by the attack and density of the Burl and then after listening for a few days the romance wore off and they both sounded very good. well worth giving a listen to.
    The Burl is like a vibrant oil painting
    The Gungir is a slightly muted colors with equal detail
     
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  7. OpmDBA

    OpmDBA New

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    Hello, I have been reading this very interesting thread. I am interested in buying the Bomber Dac for my hifi equipment but I have a question when using it with a Tidal transmission system from a Node2i.

    when connected by Spdif, does the bomber dac change the sample rate of the played track automatically?
     
  8. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I think setting the clock source to the Digital In allows the sample rate to be set automatically per the SPDIF/AES output of the digital source. @CEE TEE?
     
  9. CEE TEE

    CEE TEE MOT: NITSCH

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    If you are using External Clock, then yes it is automatic. (And the red "LOCK" should show in the display.)
    If you are using Internal Clock, you manually select the sample rate.
    Right now, mine is out on loan to a friend but I was using Internal Clock, AES input, and always just 44.1
     
  10. Clemmaster

    Clemmaster Friend

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    You never got glitches with these settings?
    If you use internal clock with AES/SPDIF sources, you can never guarantee that the source and DAC clocks will not drift from each other and cause a resync “pop”. Unless of course you tie the source clock to the Burl via the EXT clock BNC (and your source has a MCLK input, which is rare).

    The setting to use with SPDIF source is “Digital In”. In this mode the Burl behaves like most DACs out there: PLL into the SPDIF clock and track rate changes. That’s how I use mine with my TV.

    I use internal clock with the Dante input so the DAC is the master clock in this case.
     
  11. OpmDBA

    OpmDBA New

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    English is not my mother tongue and I don't know if I'm understanding it right...

    In the manual it says that the DIGITAL IN input is for Dante. Does it also detect the word clock of the SPDIF/AES inputs?

    Video signals output from a TV are always fixed at 48.

    So my understanding is that this dac only changes the auto word clock when it is set to EXTERNAL. What makes it impossible to connect it to a transmission system like the node and make it work automatically.

    A solution would be to add a Mutec?
     
  12. Clemmaster

    Clemmaster Friend

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    I think the “Dante” clock option is for the ADC.
    The DAC clearly says “Digital In” and it is like I said: it tracks the incoming sample rate.
    You can use the B2 DAC on Digital In with Dante, but they recommend you use Internal instead and slave the Dante controller to the DAC’s internal clock for best performance (unless you have a better external clock, in which case you’d set the DAC to external, but that’s a special case).

    For SPDIF/AES just use digital in.
     
  13. OpmDBA

    OpmDBA New

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    Ok. Thank you!
     
  14. davenrk

    davenrk New

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    Hi, I'm interested in a Burl B2, only for listening purposes, no monitoring, no mixing, no mastering....I'm an audiophile :)

    A friend of mine told me that the B2 is not so much linear in the bass region (swollen), is it true or not?

    Maybe with the latest OPA8 they can have adjusted this problem?

    Did you have compared it with other PRO DAC suchas Merging Hapi, DAD, and so on?

    thanks
     
    Last edited: Nov 6, 2023
  15. Josh Schor

    Josh Schor Friend

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    this is what I found
    This is a great dac, I decided to stay with the Gungnir and could easily live with the Burl. I like both equally. I was really taking by the attack and density of the Burl and then after listening for a few days the romance wore off and they both sounded very good. well worth giving a listen to.
    The Burl is like a vibrant oil painting
    The Gungir is a slightly muted colors with equal detail
     
  16. davenrk

    davenrk New

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    @Josh Schor what do you think about the Burl in the bass region? Is this emphasized?
     
  17. Josh Schor

    Josh Schor Friend

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    If I remember everything could be empasized by increasing the db output(distortion). It is very vivid, nothing is muted in its presentation. It was very good. the Gungnir MB has softer edges, both have great tone denisity, and tonal balance. You have to hear it in your system to know if its right for you. I stayed with the Gungnir which I prefer over the Holo Dac and the yggdrasil LIM. Good Luck
     
  18. phantompowered

    phantompowered New

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    I'm a new guy to the forum so forgive the intrusion into this discussion. I was considering a B2 as an upgrade to my long-lived Benchmark DAC1, and have been lurking the crap out of this thread to very interesting effect. From a design perspective I think it is right for me! Love those discrete op amps and simple, clean architecture! However I am confused about how it should be used in a hi fi system with a digital streaming source over SPDIF.

    As my recent Hello World post will note, I have plenty of experience with studio gear. I'm a little baffled why you'd choose to use the Digital Input clock in a hi fi context... Part of the appeal of the Burl gear is that it provides super stable high quality/low jitter internal clocking, so much so that it has the extra BNC outs meant to fly that clock to other gear for optimal digital sync, with the B2 acting as the master. isn't it shooting yourself in the foot to forgo the Burl internal clocking and slave it to a plain jane SPDIF signal from some or other streaming source? The device manual even says, in bold no less, Use Internal Clock Whenever Possible.

    Or is there something about the clocking/conversion architecture that I am missing here that folks could expand on? Burl does the standard thing of using a PLL to latch to the external clock rate from SPDIF and then... what? The DAC chip is now running off a potentially lower stability external clock, depending on the source.

    My digital source is an Allo DigiOne. Allo makes a big deal of their "reclocking" of the digital output of the Raspberry Pi in order to lower jitter. However, it seems obvious that the Burl unit should make a better timing source as the clock signal is native to the converter and probably more stable/well implemeted than the Digi...

    Right?

    (At the end of the day, using the Digital Input for clock on the Burl won't kill me, because we're talking about tiny tiny differences in stability here that may have a marginal effect on the sound, and it would be a pain to change the internal clock setting every time the sample rate from the streamer changed, but it sure seems counterintuitive.)
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2023
  19. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Some people who have gone down the rabbit hole will also have a super duper unicorn tears external reclocker thingamajig to rejigger the spdif. I don't remember if the Burl can do it, but my SPL Mercury dac can also sync the clock to a different spdif source than the one you are receiving the signal from. *shrug* more flavours of nuttery depending which side of the fence you come from :cool:
     
  20. Clemmaster

    Clemmaster Friend

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    In a studio environment, most devices are locked together using an external (usually high quality) clock.
    Some consumer streamers can be synchronized to an external clock. In this case you would use the B2 as the master clock, or “slave” the B2 and the streamer to an external clock, if you have one.

    If your B2 has the Dante input, then you can set it to use its internal clock and have Dante use that clock. The streamer/source will be “slaved” to the B2 clock.

    That’s how I use mine when I want to be serious. But really, it sounds great even from the SPDif input and should already be much better than a Benchmark DAC1.
     

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