Positives

  • Stiff Aggressive
  • Fast Turn Initiation
  • Excellent Pop
  • Excellent Good Condition Carver
  • Great for smaller boots
  • Pretty Fast

Negatives

  • Base Glide Should Be Faster At This Price
  • Edge Hold Behind Some Peers
  • Not Ideal for Bigger Boots

Summary

The Burton High Fidelity is a very narrow, quick-turning normal-length shape with a modern camber profile and construction. It's definitely unique to the Family Tree and Burton's line. It's a stiffer, flexing, more centered big mountain pintail type of ride.

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Riding Style Freeride
Riding Level Advanced - Expert
Fits Boot size (US) < 8, 8-10, 10-12
Manufactured in Austria
Shape Tapered Directional
Camber Profile Directional Camber
Stance Setback over 20mm
Approx. Weight Feels Normal
Split Comes in split
Powder Great
Base Glide Good
Carving Great
Speed Great
Uneven Snow Good
Switch Average
Jumps Great
Jibbing Poor
Pipe Good
On Snow Feel

Semi-Locked In

Turn Initiation

Fast

Skidded Turns

Semi-Hard

Flex

Medium/Stiff

Buttering

Semi-Hard

Edge Hold

Medium Snow

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An Honest Objective Write Up of the Burton High Fidelity Review by The Good Ride

An Un-Paid, Un-Biased Breakdown Of How the Burton High Fidelity Rides

Burton High Fidelity Review - The Good Ride
Burton High Fidelity Review – The Good Ride

How The Burton High Fidelity Was Tested:

How It Was Tested
Burton High Fidelity – How It Was Tested

I borrowed the Burton High Fidelity for an extended demo and sent it back.

Ethics Statement

I was not paid to do this review, and it comes from an honest, objective perspective with no brand oversight.

If this review helped, we’d appreciate it if you support objective content by:

Size: 158
Days: 3
Conditions: Low lit but good groomers, Ok pow and then legit pow thanks to my Drift Board Bindings & Union Rovers
Riders: James (Size 9, 5’10”, 185-190lbs). I’ve tested and compared 800+ boards
Boots: Ride Deadbolt,
Insoles: F.I.T. Gamechangers
Bindings: Union Atlas, Union Force
Redundancy: Strapins in case boots or bindings break.
Jacket: Jones Mtn Surf Anorak, Skyline Fuse Jacket
Pant: Jones Mountain Surf Pant, Burton AK Gore-Tex Pro 3L Hover Pant, Skyline Faze Pant
Helmet: Smith Method, Smith Scout, Smith Maze
Goggle: Smith 4D Mag
Gloves: Burton AK Clutch Mitt, Burton AK Tech Leather Glove, Drop Tahoma Mitt,

James’s Set Up: 21.5” Wide. Stance Angles +18/-3, +18/+3. Close to Reference on groomers and Set all the way back in powder.

Similar Boards We Like (but not the same):

Amplid Souly Grail, K2 Alchemist, YES PYL Uninc, Weston Backwoods, United Shapes Cadet, Burton Gril Master, Jones Flagship Pro,

Approximate Weight

(We don’t put in the exact weight because with wood cores, there is no consistency in a board’s weight)

Sizing

Width Over The Inserts
Burton High Fidelity – 158 Sizing

 

The 158 Burton High Fidelity felt a little narrow for my boot size, and I felt a little heavy but not too heavy. Usually, boards this size and in this recommended weight range fit me well with Burton, but I think the lighter/poppy construction combined with the narrow width made me very 162 curious. Its recommended weight range of 180-260 puts me at the bottom at 185-190lbs, but at least it’s not wide, so my size nine boots have better leverage on edge than many other family tree boards in this weight range.

Sizing is all about balancing what fits your boot size and your weight for how you like to ride. If your boot is too wide, you can’t turn it; if it’s too narrow, you get the dreaded Toe & Heel Drag. Your weight is a close second to boot size because it determines how the board will feel under your foot.  Height comes in a distant 3rd. Some prefer control, so matching the boot size is the priority. Others prefer dampness over control and like to size up.

Here are some ideal US boot sizes for these boards.
150: 6.5-7.5
154: 7-8
158: 7,5-8.5
162: 8.5-9.5
166: 9-10
158w: 9.5-10.5
162w: 10-11

I would stay in the lower to upper middle of Burton’s recommended weight ranges. If it comes down to boot size or weight, Make sure it fits your boot first and then your weight a distant second because these boards run narrow, and you really want to avoid toe/heel drag.

Shape

Shape
Burton High Fidelity – Shape

There isn’t a lot of taper, but it has a pretty directional shape with a much larger nose than the tail. The Burton High Fidelity does feel a little more tapered.

Camber/On Snow Feel/Ability Level

Burton High Fidelity - Camber
Burton High Fidelity – Camber

There is a good bit of camber, just a few centimeters less than full camber. All that camber, combined with the almost stiff flex, makes the Burton High Fidelity pretty technical. Skidding a turn takes some work, but it’s still not as unforgiving as full camber. It tracks one footing and flat basing very well, but compared to many boards these days, it feels very narrow, so for some, it might not feel as stable one footing and flat basing. It’s twitchy but not hooky.

Edge Hold

It’s not on par with many peers regarding edge hold but if you don’t like disrupted sidecuts it makes for a

Flex Personality

Burton High Fidelity - Flex
Burton High Fidelity – Flex

The Burton High Fidelity is on the border of being stiff, but I’d still call it medium/stiff, as it doesn’t feel as gnarly as past boards like the Leader Board and others. It wasn’t super easy to butter in the nose/tail, but there was a lot of pretty easy pop. You would think it would be harder, but it snaps into the air easily for average riders like me.

Uneven Snow

Burton High Fidelity - Uneven Snow
Burton High Fidelity – Uneven Snow

This board was light but not ultralight and poppy, so it didn’t feel too chattery. However, it wasn’t ideal in uneven snow when it was hard. If you are seeing soft, uneven snow, it will do pretty well for a narrow little board.

Speed

This is pretty fast, and although narrow, it can go straight well.

Base Glide

Base Glide
Burton High Fidelity – Base Glide

So the blue WFO base on the Burton Straight Chuter and Hometown hero in the past felt a bit faster. This is much better than past bases and doesn’t need to be waxed, rewaxed, and waxed again. It’s just not as good as expected for a board at this price. I wish this had that old, super-fast blue base.

Turning Experience/Carving

Burton High Fidelity - Carving
Burton High Fidelity – Carving

The High Fidelity turns super quick for my size 9 boots. Whenever I needed this board to be somewhere, it got there lightning fast. This is a great board for those who like to slalom through trees or bumps. Once you get it on edge, it slows down, giving you a more balanced turning experience. This like’s down the line, it turns a little more than across the groomer carves, but all can be accomplished.

The spring out of a harder carve is pretty special. It likes a little more backfoot weight, but it won’t feel that washy on a front foot or center-weighted turn, either. I love Burton’s balanced freeride geometries tech. It makes you feel taper in pow when needed, but not as much on groomers when you don’t

Powder

Burton High Fidelity - Powder
Burton High Fidelity – Powder

For more of a narrow, big mountain board, the Burton High Fidelity did a very good job floating in powder. I thought it would suck after taking the same run as the Alekesam, a much wider/better powder board, but it didn’t feel as far behind as I thought.

Pow Set Back on board vs. Sidecut
Burton High Fidelity – Pow Set Back

The High Fidelity can’t set back that much at 3.25″ at a very wide 23″ stance witch, but it feels like you are further back because of that small pin tail. It makes it feel more like you are 4″-4.5″ back, but you still have some landing gear if you want to get a lot of air.  If I were on the 162, this would have been a pretty good floater. In pow, it does have more of a surfy/slashy feel to it versus how it feels on groomers, which I appreciate.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I liked the Burton High Fidelity. I’d love to try a 162, but as it stands, it’s great to see a board made for smaller feet during a time when everything seems more focused on 10-11s, which is the new normal size.

 
Burton High Fidelity Specs

 
Burton High Fidelity Images

We try to get as many images of the Burton High Fidelity, but forgive us if they're not all there.

2025

Burton High Fidelity User Reviews

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