![]() ![]() The soundstage was now very much outside my head. With the open-backed Oppo PM-1, the Led Zeppelin-esque Sylvan Song from the same album had a wider recorded acoustic which wasn't that far from what I get from Chord's Mojo, in fact.Īmazingly, plugging in the Noble in-ear monitors to the Sparrow's balanced output was tantamount to using a completely different device. Even with its distinctly nineteen seventies production, the upper mids and treble were energetic without becoming sibilant and had suitably satisfying soundstaging. Driven by the closed-backed Ultrasone cans, bass was taut, fast and punchy with an airy and robust midband that helped illuminate vocalists such as Ann Wilson as she sang the title track Little Queen from Heart's second album. Through all my headphones, the EarMen Sparrow displayed a detailed with a fairly neutral sound. That might be more to do with my phone's foibles, but I thought it worth mentioning just in case you believed that the Sparrow wasn't working for you. Oddly, I found that the supplied USB-C cable would only work with the EarMen logo on the cable closest to the dongle. So this is a very clever, feature-filled dongle indeed. Headphones included the Ultrasone Edition 15 Veritas, Oppo PM-1, and Ezertich Thalia for single-ended listening and my trusty Noble Savanna IEMs that are tricked out with ORB Clear Force Custom balanced cabling.Īdditionally – and I've not seen this mentioned on the EarMen site – I discovered that when I plugged the Sparrow into my Surface Go, the EarMen dongle is detected by Roon and can be used as a renderer that unpacks MQA. #Earman sparrow pro#Yet as we all know in hi-fi, it's not always the spec sheet that wins the battle… SOUND QUALITYįor the audition period, I used the Sparrow plugged into my Huawei P30 Pro smartphone using the USB Audio PRO app that gives bit-perfect playback. I must say that, at this point, things aren't looking good for the EarMen Sparrow's obvious rival, the AudioQuest DragonFly range which tops out at 24-bit/ 96kHz and only has the one 3.5mm output. It comes bundled with an EarMen-logoed USB-C cable, and while it might not be as compact as the Zorloo Ztella, it does offer balanced output. ![]() On the top edge of the device is a USB-C port, while at the other end you find both a 3.5mm stereo and 2.5mm balanced output good for a claimed 4V RMS into 600 ohms.Īs anyone who's come in contact with Auris Audio products would expect, the EarMen Sparrow is both attractive and well-made. ![]() White simply indicates that the Sparrow is connected and ready, whereas red means that it isn't yet connected to a stream. Depending on what's being played, the logo lights up green when connected to a PCM/DXD/DSD stream or magenta for MQA. Measuring a mere 42x22x8mm, there's little space with which to do anything fancy, but I think credit is due to the designer having the EarMen logo double up as the light indicator for the Sparrow's playback status. #Earman sparrow plus#Naturally, other high-resolution audio sources can be enjoyed through the EarMen dongle, as it supports 32-bit/384kHz PCM including DoP, plus DSD64 and DSD128. This unit automatically detects any MQA stream and entirely unfolds it when streamed from the likes of TIDAL's Master Quality Authenticated library. The beating heart is its ESS Sabre ES9281PRO chip, flagship of the line.Ĭlaiming best-in-class audio performance, the Sabre chip also has bragging rights for being the first to offer an integrated hardware MQA renderer. Beneath this smooth exterior lies a four-layer gold-plated PCB which, according to EarMen, “guarantees the minimal loss of sound quality”. The aluminium chassis not only keeps the weight down but also mitigates interference, claims the manufacturer. #Earman sparrow portable#The EarMen Sparrow is the company's latest portable hi-res audio product and comes in the shape of a wonderfully slick CNC'd aluminium pebble with glass front and rear. The name may be registered in Chicago, USA, but all of its products are built and assembled in Europe. However, instead of using Auris Audio for its portable hi-fi offerings, founder, engineer and designer Milomir 'Miki' Trosic decided that he needed a separate brand, so EarMen was born. Indeed, I am currently putting one of its Eutrupe valve headphone amplifiers through its paces. EarMen might not be quite the household name just yet, but some audiophiles may be familiar with the highly-respected Serbian Auris Audio brand. ![]()
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