Faster alternative to the ASR Emitter?

Tony, I love to experiment and may take a crack at it at some point. I am having a sound room built in my basement, and thus there is so much flux in my system that other smaller "changes" may get swallowed. I surmised a certain degree of complexity not from our conversation but from other reviews of the mod:

03-26-11: Casouza
I have upgraded to Burson op-amps in as ASR Emitter II amplifier and a high-end CD player.
This is a very worthwhile upgrade, better than monolithic op-amps in every aspect of the audio checklist. Give them a couple of hundred hours to break-in and have fun!
I have about 15 years experience in tweaking electronics. This is a winner, probably one of the best electronic tweaks.
Warning: pay attention and make a note of the location of pin 1 in order to avoid mishaps. You may need to solder a short ground wire between the op-amp and the component's circuit board. I had to add a ground wire on the ASR Emmiter, though I do not recall the reason anymore.
Enjoy!
Casouza (Threads | Answers | This Thread)

Furthermore, I wonder what you are "hearing" given ASR's analysis of the Burson (slow and dull)? Another friend of mine tried the Burson opamp in a dac and came to similar conclusions. Some folks on the DIY forums were mocking the Burson experience as purely anecdotal. The Burson apparently generates more distortion, but maybe that's part of its magic...like a tube.

What I DO KNOW is that the ASR is sensitive to associated equipment, and its "sound" can change dramatically. Mine went from rather pedestrian, 2D sounding to 3D with the addition of a "conditioner." Go figure.

It does not seem credible that one would add a ground wire without recalling the reason for doing so. As Casouza is a self-professed 15 year compulsive tweaker, I might venture that there was in fact no verifiable reason to have done so.

True, it does not. I asked Burson for specs on their opamp and got no response. Got feedback from another manufacturer who is an OCD tweaker at heart, and he did not like the Burson opamp either. The arguments swirling around discrete versus monolith opamps are intriguing but not compelling. The real question is that if you did a blinded A+B, would your wife or non-audiophile "hear" the difference?

I don't own an ASR and I have no experience with Burson opamps.

What I do have direct experience with is:

- I generally have preferred discrete output stages to opamps. So if I were game for rolling opamps, I would certainly consider what Burson, Dexa and Audio GD call "discrete opamps".

- I have indeed swapped opamps before and it's sort of a YMMV thing. But a number of various opamps are available for $20, $50, $100. And in a hobby where a cotton covered cable costs $1000, and people shell out hundreds for a power cord, I think opamp rolling is one tweak which is quite high value by comparison.

Wilsynet, I agree. I will try it when the time is right and the dust settles in my system. I am also tempted to try the silver WBT RCAs and SW posts as Friedrich and others claim they have quite an impact as well.