![]() It lights with four different colors signifying different states of operation, but I’ll not go into the details here – it’s in the user manual anyway. Sparrow doesn’t have any controls, it’s powered automatically when connected while the volume is controlled via the player. This second one makes all the difference when talking about this unit, but more about it in a sound quality section. One is your normal single-ended 3.5 mm stereo jack that offers up to 2.0 Vrms, while the other one is a balanced 2.5 mm output that’ll go up to 4.0 Vrms in 600 Ohms. There’s one input in form of USB-C, but there are two outputs to choose from. Aside from that, it’ll take PCM and DXD up to 384 kHz, as well as DSD up to 128 DoP.īeing this small means there’s usually not much to talk about in this section, but Sparrow packs one important surprise. If you’re an Apple user, you’ll have to buy additional cable, or maybe nicely ask your favorite brand to start following industry standards for once.ĮarMen Sparrow is based around Sabre’s ES9281PRO D/A converter that offers wide format support, including the increasingly more popular MQA decoding. The USB-C one to connect it to your smartphone, and the USB-A one that’s standard on all our PCs. The Package is very simple, there’s the DAC itself and two USB cables. On the contrary, it looks very slick and feels like a well-built product. It’s tiny and lightweight but the use of quality materials means it doesn’t feel cheap. EarMen Sparrow is even a bit more compact than that. On the other hand, I find the Audioquest DragonFly family to be proper portable devices. ![]() Build and PackageĪ lot of devices call themselves portable nowadays, but sticking a battery into something doesn’t really make it all that portable, does it? Well maybe to some degree, carrying mentioned TR-Amp or Chord Mojo with my laptop is quite OK, but carrying those slabs in my pockets is a completely different story – neither my pockets nor patience is that stretchy. ![]() It really says something about the product when you don’t want to stop using it after the review is done.īut today, it’s about finding out if EarMen can repeat its success with a truly portable and tiny device. While writing this article, one of the brand’s first products TR-Amp is sitting on my desk and juicing my headphones. Sparrow is a portable DAC brought by EarMen – a quite fresh brand on the market, but I have to say they entered it with aplomb.
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