EarMen TR-Amp Review
EarMen TR-Amp
$249.99
Pros
- Very compact and portable. Decent battery life.
- Powerful Portable Amplifier, Well priced.
- Solid Build Quality, Clean dark backgrounds
Cons
- No optical inputs or balanced outputs
- No wireless inputs
The team at earphonia.com have been aware of the EarMen brand and also their strong associations with higher end brand Auris Audio, so we were understandably excited to be given the opportunity to get to experience their latest portable amplifier. We have now spent some time with the latest EarMen TR-Amp portable headphone amplifier so are pleased to be able to share our findings with our loyal audio followers. The TR Amp has been built in conjunction with Auris Audio, so with that level of combined knowledge and expertise, expectations are high.
Building on their experience from their more luxury offerings, they have released under the EarMen brand, some more affordable offerings for the portable audio market:
In this review we are covering the TR-Amp portable headphone amplifier, lets get straight into seeing what you get for your USD249.
Unboxing/Build Quality/Accessories:
We have produced an unboxing video on our IGTV feed to show you exactly what you get and how this good looking Amplifier looks and operates.
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You can see from the video the TR-Amp has a striking bold red anodized finish, with a slightly curved shape at the top. The design is clean, functional and is quite compact and should be able to fit in your pocket or inside jacket pocket when on the move.
The build quality is solid using strong precise CNC machined aluminium.
The contrast of white wording/indicators on the amplifier give ease of identifying all the functions available with no eye straining required.
On the front you can see the matt silver finish of the On/Off dial which also is used for granular volume control.
There are two headphone outputs available to use, one IEM friendly 3.5mm and one 6.3mm Headphone jack.
Both jacks are single ended stereo and can be used in parallel, so two listeners can use them at the same time, output levels seemed to not changes with either one or two headphones attached.
The back of the amplifier has Two USB C inputs present, one is used to charge and the other is used for source input data. Again these can be used in parallel, so you can listen while the TR-Amp is still charging to its full capacity.
A toggle switch is present also to select between Direct (Dac) or Pre out functionality, Pre out has higher output voltage of 3.4V as compared to the 2.1V output of the Direct Dac. The Pre Out will as expected bypass the internal amp DAC and the switch makes it easy to alternate between to 2 options.
Present is also the Line Output standard RCA Left (L white) and Right (R red) channel ports.
The build quality finish is precise and solid, buttons are strong and give good response when used.
When in use the amplifier did not appear to generate any perceivable warmth even at higher volume levels.
When using the volume dial there was sometime some minor static sound but the was not a major issue and only occurred on occasion.
Volume is pretty powerful and I never had to dial past the halfway mark even on demanding headphones.
My advice is set the dial low to start with to avoid getting loud sound levels and incrementally dial up to suit you specific audible tastes.
The TR-Amp certainly packs some power into such a small device.
Packed into this small DAC\Amp is the well respected ESS Sabre 9038 chipset which supports a number of hi resolution audio formats DSD, DXD, PCM, MQA .
As expected for the Sabre chip you get a clean dark background which gives a premium feel to the signature style.
The TR-Amp does not struggle when decoding the formats and switching between different formats is effortless, with no transition clicks or unexpected sound-level spikes.
The base of the Amp has 4 silicon type feet for protecting the amp and raising it away from direct surface contact.
We are very happy with the build quality, appearance and thoughtful design of the TR Amp, as well as the striking red rich look.
