Burmester 956 MK2 Power Amplifier

The 956 MK2 sits in Burmester's Classic Line as the direct descendant of the 909 and 911 — the reference amplifiers that have defined the company's power amplification since 1990. Many of the insights gained designing the 909 shaped this one, at a scale and price a wider range of systems can accommodate.

What distinguishes it on paper is the damping factor: 3478, paired with an extremely short rise time. That combination is what allows the amplifier to deliver large currents on demand, and it is why the 956 MK2 holds composure into loudspeakers with low impedances and complex loads where lesser amplifiers lose grip. Internal wiring to the output stages and speaker binding posts is 10 mm high-purity copper, so the current the amplifier generates actually reaches the drivers.

Like the 808 preamplifier, the 956 MK2 is modular — older units can be brought up to current specification rather than replaced. The signal path is fully balanced and DC-coupled, free of the distorting capacitors that colour lesser designs, with Class-A amplification stages throughout. Every unit is hand-assembled in Berlin and subjected to roughly 300 computer-aided measurements, burned in at nominal load for a week, then measured again. Only when both sets of results agree does a unit go to listening test.

As a stereo amplifier it delivers 240 watts per channel into four ohms. Bridged to mono it delivers 500. Burmester bridges the pair internally at the factory when they are ordered together.