Ultra portable DAC/Headphone Amp

[bart]

Originally Posted by joel_hifi

Received the EarMen Sparrow today, very pleased with this little device

Significant upgrade from the AQ Dragonfly Red on all aspects, will revert with details

They cost the same!
You got me interested...

[-E-]

I still use my little Meridian Explorer; love that thing. My last flight on AF the fa noticed my rig (and AudioAficionado) so I let him listen for a bit on his break... the grin on his face was ear-to-ear.


I was thinking about an upgrade, and it looks like Mojo would be the beans, as James May would say... however it seems nobody has any in stock right now.

[doggiehowser]

Glad you are liking it too.

Post your impressions!

[joel_hifi]

Today I tried my new little toy in the small pool house system, a pretty old Audionet SAM integrated amp driving a pair of recent 650$ Magnepan LRS speakers.

Streaming from Qobuz on the Apple MacBook Pro with the dongle DAC connected to the amp via 3.5 jack to RCA cable.

I played between the AQ Dragonfly Red and the EarMen Sparrow and again what an impressive improvement the Sparrow is over the AQDR!

Better dynamics, resolution, clarity, stage. Maybe the only caveat would be on bottom frequency where the AQ has more extension... but the Sparrow plays it tighter, so overall I prefer the Sparrow presentation.

Won't need a standalone DAC in there, the Sparrow does the trick

[doggiehowser]

Originally Posted by -E-

I still use my little Meridian Explorer; love that thing. My last flight on AF the fa noticed my rig (and AudioAficionado) so I let him listen for a bit on his break... the grin on his face was ear-to-ear.


I was thinking about an upgrade, and it looks like Mojo would be the beans, as James May would say... however it seems nobody has any in stock right now.

From what I understand, the manufacturer of the metal case for the Mojo is unable to make more and it is a single supplier to Chord.

I wonder if a Chord Mojo 2 is in the works. It is the only one in their line up to miss out of the M-Scaler upgrade path. Though, I don't know how many people are crazy enough to shell out for an upgrade that's more than 9x the price of the original unit (in Australia).