EarMen - Colibri

I had recently bought the Earmen Coliibri portable amp and dac which was on sound festival sale. The packaging of the product was really good and the device itself is extremly well built! The design and the feel of the product is superb and on top it comes with a free leather case which is icing on the cake.
It comes with an in built battery which gives about roughly 4.5 Hrs of continuous playback time when fully charged. The battery level indication is shown when the device is turned on and depending on the battery level it will blink the led indicator from 4 times maximum to 1 time of min battery level.
Now one of the main advantage and reason for me going for this device was that it has built in battery which makes sure that it doesn't drain out quickly your cellphones or laptops battery like a other portable amps and dac's do! the second reason was having an inbuilt battery makes sure that the dac chip inside the device receives uninterruptable and clean power source making sure there is no noise issue due to poor power and uneven supply! Many good portable amps suffer from this problem as they are not able to get clean power source especially when using inferior quality cellphone devices.
Now regarding the main purpose of this device! How good do they sound?
Well well well..when I first plunged in my Moondrops Blessings 2 earphones my god! I instantly noticed huge difference in sound as well as sound stage!
The sound stage so wide I could listen to the echo's in the music which previously was not even noticeable! The sound coming from the Blessing 2 was so clean i could pinpoint the source of sound very clearly! The little sibilance issue that bleesing 2 has completely went off after i plugged into this device!
The device has 3.5mm and 4.4mm balance output the moment I connected the device to 4.4mm balanced output damn!! The performace raised even higher!! The soundstage got even more wider,The bass thump increased substantially with clean and tighter impact! It was truly spectacular to say the least!
I then tried my Sennheiser IE 300 with it and again the mids which used to sound dull on those earphones came to life! More presence of the mids, high rich treble and deep impact of base made Sennheiser IE 300 sound truly amazing on this device!
Then I tried connecting my Sennheiser HD 600 over the ear headphones. It is a very difficult headphones to drive as they require 300 ohms. With it's 3.5mm output it couldn't bring the power required to drive the HD 600. But after i connected to 4.4 mm balanced output it was able to drive to HD 600 very well, which is good enough for listening satisfactorily but it lacked the oomph that only a proper desktop dac and amp can do. Nonetheless the music sounded very clean and transparent on those headphones and at no point they sounded muffled or noisy, showing how capable the dac chip and amp is of this device!
Also this device has a small bass boost button which increases the bass subtly to 3 decibels and it its quiet noticeable and comes in very handy when listening to music like EDM, HIP HOP and other genres where in one wants to feel the thump! Personally i am addicted to this bass boost feature as it sounds amazing across all genres of music.
All in all a truly spectacular device with amazing sound capabilities and a device that doesn't hog the battery of your device.
A great portable device for people who truly wants an audiophile level of listening experience from their earphones and headphones (especially withing 200 ohms). A gem of a product from built quality to sound reproduction.!
Thank you headphone zone for the quick delivery and making such a wonderful product available on a discount.

Good work 👏 🙌 👍 👌

The sound is as expected from an Earmen device. Clean sound, bass is well defined and good treble extension.
But biggest disappointment is that, there is no Leather Case, as claimed.

The Good..!
1. Design and Looks - 5/5
Glossy finish, Stylish and Eye Candy.
2. Controlled Playback - Great and Unique Feature - 5/5
While Pause/Play, sound comes gradually from low volume to current volume in a second, instead of suddenly/abruptly shouting. I found this kind of feature in high-end Blu-ray players. It is a surprise to find it here.
3. Dedicated Charge and Data Port - Great Feature - 5/5
Simultaneously, it can be charged and played as it has two ports.

The Bad..!
1. Volume Controls - 1/5
I was stunned to know that volume controls do not control the volume of the hardware; instead, they control the volume of source device software like a cheap dongle DAC. So, in both Android and iPhone, I only got 16 steps of volume. Any DAC at this premium level should have granular volume control (like iBasso DC04 Pro, Cayin RU6 has 100 steps). In a sense, I felt like those buttons were of no value except acting as a remote control to the source device (phone/iPad). Highly disappointed.
2. Driving Power - 2/5
I tried with HD600, HD650, Simgot EW 200 and Final E-5000. To get the right effect I need to up the volume in range of 80-100%. The same is true even for balanced port, on paper its has more power but in reality I need to hover over 80% to get the desired output. But the issue is the lack of granular volume control, which results in either too loud or too low in that one-step increment. I cannot go from 80 to 82 or 84 per cent; It jumps from 80 to 88 or 90 roughly. Sometimes 100% won't give enough oomph, i.e. equivalent to no headroom.
I tried to rescue it by connecting with an external AMP (Topping NX7) to control the volume, but it affected the sound signature.
3. Bass Boost - 2.5/5
It is very subtle, very light and not significant. It's average.
4. Battery - 3/5
Every 4-5 hours, it needs to recharge.

Final Verdict: 3/5
1. Good for who overlook volume control, who like to stay at lower volumes, who uses KZ style IEMs which are sensitive and loud at low levels, collectors who can forgive volume issue for the sake of sound signature.
2. Overall, I liked the sound signature, it's beautiful, but I cannot forgive the lack of hardware volume control. So, It's not for me.