Striking out recently. Need recommendations

TL;DR - My Gustard H10 and Burson Opamps are unreliable, the new V6 Vivid opamp sounds like crap, and Schiit caused me to be mildly annoyed. I need some help to determine how to move forward. Apologies for being long winded. This year in audio has proven to be very uninspiring for me and I'm extremely frustrated. I don't like tubes. I need something that is very, very open and detailed. I want the transparency and fast response that the Focal Elear is capable of. I don't know what amp would provide this.

Spoiler

I've been trying to come up with a reasonable desktop system at work but I have recently become very frustrated. I am not into portable equipment, but my desktop space is limited such that a Schiit Yggdrasil chassis will not suffice. This should still leave me with plenty of options. I finally found some equipment that I thought would be end-game, but the lack of long-term reliability and quality is concerning me. It is now to the point that my headphone amp may be damaging my beloved Focal Elear, so I need to fix it or get rid of everything and start over again. I need some help.

Begin March of this year. I obtained a used Focal Elear after drooling over them for quite sometime. My home stereo is a pair of Focal Electra 1028Be2, so I am very fond of the Focal sound. I was, and still am, in love with the Focal Elear. I went on a spending spree and got a Schiit Bifrost and Asgard 2. Much to my sadness, this sounded like absolute dog shit. The Asgard 2 is undoubtedly the worst headphone amp I have ever used. After several months of sitting I finally managed to sell it.

The Asgard 2 was replaced with a Gustard H10 that I purchased from Massdrop. For the price, there was no way it could have been worse than the Asgard 2. Thankfully it sounded good right out of the gate. I bought a set of Burson V5 opamps shortly thereafter and I had some issues with the install. The mechanical fit of the DIP socket is very poor so the opamps sort of float in place. This caused them to not work at all at first. I then realized that an insert inside the Gustard DIP socket had been stuck in one of the stock IC when I pulled it out. I managed to get the insert back in and things were working well for awhile. It sounded absolutely fantastic. At this point I decided I was done, and I was quite smitten with myself for finding such amazing performance for a reasonable price.

Cut to only 5 weeks later and one of the Burson opamps burst (Burston?). This was certainly due to the poor connection of the DIP socket. I contacted them and they requested that I send the bad opamp back to them and they will send me a replacement. I am empathetic to the fact that they are in Australia and I am in the US, but shipping this one opamp would cost me $60-80, where an entire set of V5 for the Gustard H10 is $120. On top of this, just a few days prior to my V5 failure Burson had released the V6 Vivid and Classis opamps. This was unsettling.

Burson offered to sell me a new set of V6 Vivid opamps for $100 shipped. I went along with this and I am now using them in my Gustard H10. Unfortunately the poor connection of the DIP socket is causing me headaches again. Right out of the gate one of the single opamps is not making a good connection. This creates an extremely loud crackling and popping through the headphone stage output. This will most certainly destroy my headphones and lead to another failure of the overpriced Burson opamps. I have been operating the H10 with the cover off so I can physically press the opamp into place as it works itself loose during heat cycling. But this is obviously unsustainable and I cannot deal with it anymore. On top of this, the V6 Vivid does not sound as good as the V5. I am reminded of the Asgard 2 and how much it sounded like an animal defecating in my ears.

In addition to the Gustard H10, I sent my Bifrost in for the Gen 5 USB upgrade and I must say, Schiit's handling of the upgrade and communication was very, very poor. After 4 weeks of waiting and no updates, it took 2 emails for them to respond and tell me that they could not ship the DAC back to me because their original PayPal invoice had expired. They needed to send me another invoice and have me pay it before they could ship. It took almost 7 weeks from time of purchase to receipt of my upgraded DAC. I bought the DAC in April of this year and just 3 months later they came out with this upgrade for "free" to anyone who chose the correct time to buy a new Bifrost. I saw some folks who were able to send their recently purchased Bifrost in and just swap it with a new one that had the Gen 5 USB. I went along with the consumer game by biting the bullet and just paying for the upgrade. I was as patient as I could have been, but the additional investment of money and time without my DAC on top of just spending retail for the thing has left a bad taste in my mouth. At this point, I cannot discern any difference that the Gen 5 USB made. However, I am hopeful that this is not the fault of the DAC, but the fault of the new Burson V6 Vivid opamps which don't seem to be satiable to me. I changed two variables at once which is never a good approach. I have to hang onto the Bifrost because of the money I now have invested in it. I am hoping that it will once again shine through as an exceptional piece once I am able to find an appropriate amp to pair it with.

 

not sure if the Elear is "very, very open and detailed". At least when I heard it, kinda sounded like a 650.

Could that be the issue?

 

I cannot agree with that at all. I have been a staunch HD650 denier for awhile. Never liked them. Before the Elear I had an HD700 which surprisingly, I really liked. To my ears the Elear has excellent detail, instrument separation, and a really quick response which supports the aforementioned abilities. A lot of this is the multibit bifrost shining through, but I did not get the full taste of it until I put the Burson V5 into the Gustard H10.

I should add my Elears were modded by the previous owner with new pads... I think they are Mr. Speakers Alpha. I have never listened to the Elear with the stock pads so I cannot be certain if this pad mod is good or bad. I've not found any reason to remove them. Hopefully someone else can comment on whether or not the stock pads are known to be inferior to the Mr. Speakers Alpha.

 

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