Earmen Sparrow Review (Portable DAC & Amp)

[jonathane40]

Has anyone tried it with sensitive IEM with a balanced connection? If so, are you getting hiss?

 

[SpamCanMan]

I picked up a sparrow about a year ago. The units were having a really hard time with EMI interference when being used with cell phones. Earman was open about the issue and included "improved" usbc cables with their future units. Unfortunately, the problem was present with more than 20 different cables. IMO, dongles used with cell phones should be able to be in close proximity to said phone (same pocket). Its been in a box for about a year now. Maybe ill take it out and see if the firmware update changed anything.

 

[staticV3]

Maybe ill take it out and see if the firmware update changed anything.

EMI immunity in these thumbdrive-style DACs can only be improved by physical means. A firmware update won't do anything.

 

[SpamCanMan]

EMI immunity in these thumbdrive-style DACs can only be improved by physical means. A firmware update won't do anything.

Thanks! On here for less than an hour and have already learned something.

 

[Human Bass]

Actually quite meh for the price.

 

[Rottmannash]

I picked up a sparrow about a year ago. The units were having a really hard time with EMI interference when being used with cell phones. Earman was open about the issue and included "improved" usbc cables with their future units. Unfortunately, the problem was present with more than 20 different cables. IMO, dongles used with cell phones should be able to be in close proximity to said phone (same pocket). Its been in a box for about a year now. Maybe ill take it out and see if the firmware update changed anything.

Get a 9038D if/when they become available again-zero EMI w/ any of my phones w/ generic USB cables and the SQ is sublime.

 

[gatesgt]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Sparrow Portable MQA DAC and balanced headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $199.

The Sparrow comes in a tidy package with a couple of USB cables:

View attachment 96399

There is a USB-C connector at one end and dual outputs: unbalanced 3.5 mm and balanced 2.5mm. Sadly there are no volume controls on the unit so you must use your source volume control.

Testing of the Sparrow was more difficult as usual because it somehow exposes itself as 48 kHz/16 bits forcing resampling of test signals. I worked around this but it limited the number of tests I could run. Note that this is an issue with my test setup and won't impact your use of the unit. Indeed I used Roon player to perform some of the measurements.

Earmen Sparrow Measurements
Here is our usual dashboard:

View attachment 96400

Nice to see our nominal 2 volt output, matching what we get out of desktop DACs. Not so good is very elevated (by desktop standards) distortion. The ranking across all DACs therefore is rather poor:
View attachment 96401

Jitter test however showed cleaner results than many such dongles:

View attachment 96402

Most important test for a portable headphone amp though is power so let's see that for 300 ohm load:
View attachment 96403

These are very good numbers for a portable product:

View attachment 96404

As you see, in balanced mode it way up there.

Here are the results for 33 ohm:

View attachment 96405

So once again competitive even without using its balanced output:

View attachment 96406

Earmen Sparrow Headphone Listening Test
I started my listening tests using the inefficient 25 ohm, Ether CX headphone via a balanced cable. I was very impressed with volume level and impact of bass frequencies indicating sufficient power. Sure, the last 20% of the volume could make slight static but stay below that and performance was very good.

I then switched to Sennheiser HD-650 using unbalanced mode, here the output level was just sufficient. I would use balanced cables with high impedance headphones for good results.

Conclusions
The distortion rating of Earmen Sparrow is high. Based on that I was going to give it poor scores but the powerful output stage, especially in balanced mode, rescues it and pushes it to above average subjective performance. There are other choices out there with slightly less power but much lower distortion so you decide which is best for you.

I am going to put the Earmen Sparrow on my recommended list on strength of its output power.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Hi Amir - I own both the Sparrow and an Audio Control Rialto 600. Although these are completely different products, I don't understand the conclusions you ended up with based on distortion. Both products had higher than desirable distortion, but the Sparrow was forgiven on this based on its power capability. From a power perspective, the Rialto is an over-achiever like the Sparrow. I wondered what you found worse on the Rialto to give it a poor review.

TY,
Greg

 

[DS_Construct]

Thanks! On here for less than an hour and have already learned something.

I have the Sparrow Mk2 and don't hear any EMI interference on my S22 Ultra, IPhone XS Max 512 (DAP) or LG V50 (DAP).

 

[Jabinho]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Sparrow Portable MQA DAC and balanced headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $199.

The Sparrow comes in a tidy package with a couple of USB cables:

View attachment 96399

There is a USB-C connector at one end and dual outputs: unbalanced 3.5 mm and balanced 2.5mm. Sadly there are no volume controls on the unit so you must use your source volume control.

Testing of the Sparrow was more difficult as usual because it somehow exposes itself as 48 kHz/16 bits forcing resampling of test signals. I worked around this but it limited the number of tests I could run. Note that this is an issue with my test setup and won't impact your use of the unit. Indeed I used Roon player to perform some of the measurements.

Earmen Sparrow Measurements
Here is our usual dashboard:

View attachment 96400

Nice to see our nominal 2 volt output, matching what we get out of desktop DACs. Not so good is very elevated (by desktop standards) distortion. The ranking across all DACs therefore is rather poor:
View attachment 96401

Jitter test however showed cleaner results than many such dongles:

View attachment 96402

Most important test for a portable headphone amp though is power so let's see that for 300 ohm load:
View attachment 96403

These are very good numbers for a portable product:

View attachment 96404

As you see, in balanced mode it way up there.

Here are the results for 33 ohm:

View attachment 96405

So once again competitive even without using its balanced output:

View attachment 96406

Earmen Sparrow Headphone Listening Test
I started my listening tests using the inefficient 25 ohm, Ether CX headphone via a balanced cable. I was very impressed with volume level and impact of bass frequencies indicating sufficient power. Sure, the last 20% of the volume could make slight static but stay below that and performance was very good.

I then switched to Sennheiser HD-650 using unbalanced mode, here the output level was just sufficient. I would use balanced cables with high impedance headphones for good results.

Conclusions
The distortion rating of Earmen Sparrow is high. Based on that I was going to give it poor scores but the powerful output stage, especially in balanced mode, rescues it and pushes it to above average subjective performance. There are other choices out there with slightly less power but much lower distortion so you decide which is best for you.

I am going to put the Earmen Sparrow on my recommended list on strength of its output power.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

This is very bad dongle. Too much emi interference if you have your mobile phone next to it or even try to use it through your mobile phone.