This is the new Limited Edition Earmen L-Amp Portable Vacuum Tube DAC/AMP. It retails for €399, only 1000 units are being made.
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Having listened to it for 5-6 hours - my first impressions of it as a product is that it pairs really well with anything that’s lean, bright, detail oriented and resolute. It should work well with anything that is near neutral too.
It is not meant to be paired with anything that’s warm or sensitive.
The tube-noise is real, especially with sensitive IEMs that has ESTs. Less sensitive DD, hybrid or planar IEMs do really well as they don’t pickup nearly as much noise as most ESTs do, and benefit greatly from the smooth, natural character of the tube sound. This is with IEM-match on.
The pinging I have found to be less of an issue personally - not very noticable imo, and fades rather quickly.
The bass boost button I would say puts a low frequency shelf at around maybe 300hz, giving a fair bit of body and juice to the bass, mid-bass and lower mids, rather than just simply deepening depth or increasing slam.
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Sound - a great blend of richness, smoothness and micro dynamics. Notes linger for very long, expressing themselves for longer than usual, kind of like the L-Amp is chasing the trail ends of notes. As such, notes echo into each other.
The duty of separation and resolute, minute deliniation of notes is handed off to the IEM or headphone you pair with, as the strengths of L-Amp almost necessarily means a decrease in these sound parameters.
But when you pair it with the right stuff and tuning - oh boy, that’s a good time.
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Sound continued - Microdynamics are so effing good on this thing!
As some reviews have mentioned, it has impeccable sense of flow and fluidity, making it easy to follow the musical intent and emotion of especially vocals. Very impressed.
So I messed around a little in the sound settings on my computer. I had it set to 44.1Khz and 16 bit.
I usually leave the sampling on 44.1Khz and 16bit.
One of the greatest strengths of the Earmen L-Amp is because it’s got tube output, it will smooth and liquidize any jagged edges, any sense of “digitus”.
So when I tried upsampling to 384kHz 32bit…
My god it jumped two levels up in terms of detail and articulation while still retaining the tube magic.
I was met only with the positives and none of the downsides of upsampling due to aforementioned smoothing and liquidity.
It is now easily the best source I’ve ever tried for headphones and IEMs. Congratulations to anyone who buys this thing
I haven’t completed the review of this unit yet but I gotta chime in. It’s sound fantastic. There’s been a ton of portable tubes over the years and this one may take it above and beyond. Just wish it was a bit more convenient with connectivity. USB Only works for its intended purpose but I’d love to actually leave this on my desk with a 3.5 mm optical input. The form factor certainly works a little better than the woo tube mini and it’s way less prone to vibration and impact ringing. I love the inset switches and buttons to keep you from hitting them by accident. I guess I should just finish the damn review.
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I was eyeing for this. But from your post it seems that this device wouldn’t pair well with my warm Softears Twilight.
It’s awesome for anything that’s not very sensitive!
Even if it’s not something I’m interested in buying I just love listening to you man!
I agree it would have been more versatile with any other input in addition to USB. Seems like an oversight with it billed as an amp…yet you have to use the internal dac.
I was curious about any tariff impact:
Hi,
We are producing in Serbia so there is NO tariffs at all.
Problem is we have left only 1 or 2 pieces from this batch so be fast….
Milomir Trosic
CEO