Is Burmester 232 worth the price?

I really don’t think that’s an issue if a dealer does the job. I think your unit is like my pre-amplifier, it’s made to be modular so adding the DAC Will not be an issue. Some of the other smart people here may think that a separate component would be better, but I’d at least consider the Burmester because I think there are obvious advantages

I have a Burmester 218 and it is, to my ears, a superb amp. To my ears, it delivers a very natural, musical sound without being slow or soft. I checked out several good brands and landed on Burmester, but certainly no bad choices among the brands mentioned by @soix. Accuphase is warmer/softer to my ears-as @soix said, its a matter of personal taste, and that might be yours.

Burmester makes high quality, well engineered and well built products, but you should ignore anyone who tells you what you will like best or what is "better" between well regarded brands-only your ears can decide. @soix mentioned a number of great brands and some will say you can match any of them for a fraction of the cost-I don't think so-but each to their own. One thing is for sure, you will have a very well designed, well built product from a highly respected brand. Price is absolute, but value is inherently subjective, and only you can decide what represents value to you. If the sound brings you joy, don't look back.

Lots of folks have great luck buying on ebay-if I were buying used I'd want the comfort of buying from a dealer, but many have great success otherwise.

You are right, you won't see much Burmester stuff on the used market, which speaks to a satisfied customer base. 

Please let us know what you think after you listen. Congrats!

@madhusudan_ramaswamy we all look at that sort of thing differently. Value, and money are unnecessarily divisive in our hobby. There are folks who are happy to pay six figures for an amp if it’s what they want and then there are a lot of folks who enjoy listening to music on a $100 Bluetooth speaker and think spending anything more than that is wasteful. No right or wrong, each to their own.

In a lot of ways, its a great time to be into music. There is such an array of equipment choices across the price spectrum that will deliver a great experience-something for everyone and every taste. And we tend to take for granted that we have literally millions of high quality tunes at our fingertips for $15 a month. That's a long way from the 60s when you would join a record club and get 10 records for .49 cents-if you agreed to buy a record a month at full price for the rest of your life. Pretty good time to be an audiophile.

I don't think it will be an issue-my amp is detailed, but certainly not bright. Your Focals may be on the bright side to some ears. I don't think the Burmester will add to that at all but may not tame it either. If its an issue, you might think about speaker cables at some point. Maybe Cardis or Audience cables and make sure you are not using anything silver. 

Lots of people here know more about cables than I do so maybe greater wisdom will chime in. But yes, I think certain cable brands- like Cardis- are generally thought to deliver a "warmer" sound, so might pair well with speakers that are on the bright side. I think Focal perfectly illustrates how subjective all this is - Focals are very detailed and transparent. Some folks find them bright but obviously many more love the sound-one of the most popular brands in the marketplace.

I think you are right to give all your new equipment time to settle in before making another move.

Good luck!

@soix is, in my humble opinion, giving you good advice. Obviously, entirely up to you and I’m happy you are pleased with your purchase. I think it’s true that to get the full value from the very fine component you purchased, your other primary components need to be at least close to the same tier. I think for a DAC That would do your rig justice you likely need to Cross the $5000 threshold. As I suggested in a previous post, I think the Burmester DAC Module might be the optimum solution.

When I bought my 808 Marc five preamplifier, I already had a very competent phono stage- not ultra level, but pretty good. The burmester module for my preamp ran circles around it in ways that I would not have expected. Something about the synergy, shorter signal path, etc. 

unfortunately, this stuff is painfully expensive, and there is also a school of thought h it doesn’t matter, but I’m guessing you could get a home audition of some comparable equipment and judge for yourself. At any rate, congratulations on a great purchase and good luck.

@jsalerno277 well said. You have a wonderful system. I'm not surprised. I'm a Kentuckian living in the middle of bourbon country and can see that your taste in brown liquor is impeccable. That obviously applies to your taste in hifi gear as well. 

Congratulations! I’m very pleased that you are happy with your purchase. It’s a beautiful piece of equipment. Might get even better with some break-in time, although to be honest with my 218 and then the 808 mark five preamp I didn’t notice much change as I got some hours on them. I tend to think that Break in is a much bigger thing with mechanical as opposed to electrical devices, but your experience may be different. At any rate, I hope you enjoy the music !

That’s a good story. Nothing better to smooth out the highs during a listening session than some good Kentucky bourbon. I remember, I did a friend a pretty good favor, probably 35 years ago, and he returned it by giving me a case of van  winkle whiskey. as you said, it wasn’t considered anything special since then. Well, I discovered several years ago. I had one bottle left and just on a whim got it priced by some of our experts here -worth about $1500 a bottle. Broke my heart, I could’ve saved All that Van winkle and been drinking Kentucky gentleman instead. Nothing wrong with that angels envy either. Wellers is my go to. 
 

enjoy!

Daft Punk? You should play some Merle Haggard on that fine machine. Not really a fair test though, since the Hag would sound good singing in a barrel.

One thing about Burmester- their stuff is art-meticulous workmanship. 

I agree with you about Luxman- really well made stuff. What DAC are you using?

There are literally dozens of decent choices in low cost DACs From what I can tell, but I would take a look at the DAC module for your new integrated amp. Burmester doesn’t sell anything cheap, but there is something to the old saying buy once cry once

You would undoubtedly get the best synergy going that route, save a pair of cables And up your game while simplifying in the process. Otherwise, if you like warm, maybe something like a Lampizator? Again, they’re going to be people on this thread that will have better advice than me, so hopefully they’ll jump in. I can tell you from experience that once you start the upward progression, as you have, it’s going to bug you that you may have a component that’s a bottleneck. 

Just to add to the point, if you can stomach the cost, I don't think you can go wrong with the Burmester DAC module- I think thats a mortal lock.  If you don't go in that direction, you might want to wait a while, let your 232 settle in, and make a decision down the road a bit. This will give you time to acclimate to your new (great) sound and determine what sonic improvements you want to pursue. Or, even better, that you are totally satisfied with the Wiim, but I'll wager you'll want something more at the level of the rest of your system.

If you are in Houston, you have access to some good stores for auditions, although with a DAC you really need to hear it in your system to make a good judgment. 

Some folks think all decent quality DACs sound the same since its all 1s and 0s. I don't think that but its a point of view.