Outboard DACs

Okay, so let’s get the ‘death ray’ jokes out of the way right at the start: what we have here is a high-aiming DAC-equipped headphone amp from a Chinese-based company that’s new – to me at least – but has a growing range of digital products, all with slightly odd names. High-aiming? Well, the rather literally-branded Listening M1 might be tiny, but it sells for a punchy £2599 alongside the £399 Pegasus SG1 Bluetooth headphone amp and Prelude DTR1+ portable music player.

After collecting an EISA Award last year for a complete headphone system featuring a stack of four mini-sized separates – the Staccato, Tradutto, CH-Amp and PSU-3 [HFN Oct '22] – EarMen has doubled back with this minimalist ST-Amp. This is a book-sized, do-it-all unit combining a DAC and dedicated headphone amp, aimed at head-fi enthusiasts looking for a quick and effective path to high-quality desktop listening. So while the ST-Amp moniker might suggest it's simply a more affordable alternative to the aforementioned CH-Amp, it's really a different beast altogether.

Search online and you’ll discover a groundswell of cheap DACs and streamers playing to every (hardware) whim, making it easy to overlook Eversolo’s efforts. But the company, which is the dedicated audio department of Shenzhen-based Zidoo, known for its EISA Award-winning Neo S media player, follows a different, more quality-focused strategy, as the affordable Z8 DAC and DMP-A6 have so far proved.

Does the world really need another DAC? Considering the ample offerings from traditional and emerging Asian hi-fi brands, you might be tempted to say, 'not really'. However, Poland's Ferrum Audio combines experience with a flair for innovation – its parent company HEM has been an OEM contractor for other manufacturers, possibly inciting its engineers to go one better for their own brand.

Underestimate the new generation of Chinese hi-fi manufacturers at your peril, because we’ve come a long way from cheap knockoffs of famous products, inexpensive music players and the like. Just as in the electric car industry, where Chinese companies are showing they have the skills and technology to match the very best, so it is in hi-fi, where brands including Eversolo [HFN May ’25] and FiiO – whose latest product, the £829 K17, we have here – are proving they can develop and innovate.

Hegel is fond of its idiosyncratic product names. In 2023 the Norwegian brand felt confident in christening its new CD player the ‘Viking’, ignoring a model number altogether [HFN Sep ’23]. In the same year it also launched the P30A preamp and H30A power amp [HFN Jun ’23] – separates also known as the Conductor and the Orchestra, respectively. 2024 saw the arrival of the H400 integrated amplifier [HFN Oct ’24], aka the Streamliner due to its networking features, and now we have the new D50, a DAC that Hegel says is ‘affectionately named the Raven’.