Subscribe
Share
Past Issues
HT Omega Claro Halo soundcard Upgrade with Burson discrete opamp
Translate
View this email in your browser
Project overview: The HT Omega Claro Halo is a wellregarded soundcard by audiophiles. Some of the reasons are that it uses a builtin highfidelity headphone amplifier and also delivers quality audio to existing receivers/amplifiers through highquality RCA connectors. An important feature of the soundcard is that you can swap opamps. Even though Omega says you should replace only two opamps, we recommend swapping all four for best results. In this project our customer used four Burson Discrete Supreme OpAmps to replace the IC mounted on the soundcard.
I’d like to share with you my experience with the Burson Audio Supreme OpAmps I just installed on my HT Omega Claro Halo sound card. This card is installed on a fanless HTPC enclosure (without even the tiniest sound from a CPU or PSU fan) for a completely silent computer it makes as much noise as a digital calculator! My speaker setup
is a pair of Martin Logan Purity electrostatic speakers and a pair of Martin Logan Abyss subwoofers. Each speaker has a builtin 200W highresolution power amplifier and the subs have a 300W high resolution amplifier. The crossover frequency is set to play only the lower frequencies that the main speakers can't handle. The result is a very smooth transition from deep bass to crisp highs all through the audible spectrum. Believe me, these speakers reveal everything that’s in the signal. You can distinguish between lossy, lossless and studiomastered lossless files. You can also hear differences with various cables and the same thing happens when you swap the op amps in the audio signal source component. It took me almost a year to complete the project because when I decided I wanted the Supreme Sound OpAmp Burson was just redesigning it from 3rd to 4th generation. The wait was definitely worthwhile. After buying the card I upgraded the four stock IC opamps (JRC4580) with four faster ones with more gain but they were still ICs. I noticed a difference and I was happy with it, but I wanted to explore discrete op amps and especially those from Burson Audio.
Finally the 4th generation was released and I bought two pair of Dual Supreme Sound OpAmps. The very first song I played, a perfectlyrecorded piece by Marta Gomez, a 96kHz/24bit studio master, I found more detail in the vocals, her most precious instrument. I only listen to highresolution studio master FLAC files and after that I played more music from classical, rock and Latin. Every bit is reproduced to perfection! I can tell you this is the best I have heard my music and it’s only after installing these opamps. I can pinpoint better the position of each instrument in the stereo image in front of me and that means channel separation is superb.
Overall the Burson Supreme Sound OpAmps make a more natural and realistic sound that appear to bring the artist right to you in the room and timbres on every instrument are more detailed. When it comes to the best in the world, then price isn’t a concern. If it solves a problem that couldn't be solved in any other way, then the price is right for the ones who can pay it.” Luis B. Find out more about the HT Omega Claro Halo here: http://www.htomega.com/clarohalo.html The soundcard is available on Amazon for $199.99
YouTube
Official Web
Copyright © Burson Audio Melbourne, All rights reserved. unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences **If you are interested on starting a similar project or any other using our SS opamps please contact us at: aftersales@bursonaudio.com for a 10% discount.
If you already have a DIY project with Burson opamps (current generation) and you are willing to share with us your a well documented project (include at least 3 photos), we will send you a pair of SS op amps as a thanking gift. To submit your entry please send your project detail to our aftersales email address.