EarMen - ST-Amp

Earmen STamp, at its current price is a great bargain. There is not much to talk about the inbuilt dac, which seems to be an afterthought. The winner here is the amplifier. It's really got a quality by which it just amplifies the incoming signal in such a way as to highlight the merits of the source. My Magni 3 + does not have this quality of highlighting the character of the source. Another interesting fact is that it pairs really well with dongle dacs, so it's potentially a gateway to experience their characters and the variations there of. The pairing with my Cayin RU6 is just jaw dropping. The soundstage and imaging is fantastic along with the tonality. Only thing is that I have to crank it up almost to the top to get enough loudness for my Sundaras. The volume knob is also a little scratchy at the top. Once the volume is set, it just vanishes and let the music flow in all its glory. Interestingly the set I got has a serial number of 000001 printed in gold! Thank you Team HPZ for providing such a wonderful opportunity to experience music in all its colours.

Definitely a Mid-range KING. Superb build quality. Has linear power supply built-in. Enjoyable clean, airy, dynamic sound. To my ears it sounds better than my ifi Zen V2 stack. Using it pared with my Earmen Donald Dac. I think i have my END GAME
stack for now. This combo is one of the best. Buy before it gets out of stock.

I had the option of going for this or Fiio K7. Went with this as it has a linear power supply.
Build quality is superb but it has sharp edges. We can actually cut fruits with its sharp edges. Just kidding :) . We rarely touch those edges so its ok.
Its inbuilt DAC is actually very good though it is just an ES9280. It has better bass, dynamics, note weight and musicality compared to many other even newer ESS DAC's products that I have used in the past.
Also tried line in with few low budget dongles I have and they also play very well with better dynamics than on their own and each different DAC showed its own flavour of sound
The unit just gets very mildly warm even after hours of usage
This drives my AKG K702 at just 10 o Clock on the volume dial in Single ended with very good dynamics
Tried balanced on my HD599 as I got Bal cable only for that and Bal sounds even more richer overall.
Tried my CCA PLA13 IEM on Bal mode. No hiss, nothing and the sound was awesome.
So I am happy with this product and HPZ's support and service have been very good.

Initially after looking at few pictures of the internal in some review I thought it is very basic Amp. But it still was very well received by reviewers so I pull the trigger once it was down to 19k in price.

The amp is supposed to be an Amp with added dac which makes it kind of an All in one.

It is bit smaller than what I imagined but it can be used vertical and horizontal without a need of stand. The body is all metallic with paint on top of it. It feel sturdy and premium.
The 3 feed at the bottom is not good, I would suggest to get rid of them if you could and replace with a better on on all four side.

It is very versatile to use with multiple dac and amp setup.

It have a internal dac which is decent but not that good for price. Dac is good enough to use for movies, videos and other content. But for music a better dac will be more usefull.

The amp section is the star of the show when paired with external dacs it show the character of the dac connected and give a bit of dynamic nature to sound.

Paired with Earmen Angel, sound was very musically and had better dynamic compared to angel's amp while preserving all good characters of angel like great resolution and good soundstage.

Paired with K9 Pro AKM I prefered the amp out from ST Amp than K9 pro's amp section. Sound became more realistic, relaxed with preservation of details and holographic nature of K9 pro. And added dynamics are very good. St amp also did made the soundstage bit wider.

Paired with chord mojo, again same effect. It preserved the sound characters of mojo with insane depth in bass and mid range.
While adding touch of dynamics and improved soundstage.

My favourite combo was Angel + STAmp + xduoo mt604 to Sundara, hd560, focal clear.

Although all these defference were very subtle to notice but it did added some enjoyment to the music.

The internal dac are good but this device is very good amp.

Its a really nice addition to the setup, frankly.

Now, there some thing I didn't liked about STAmp:
It doesn't come with any cable, like for 20k device it should have atleast a usb or power cable.
For headphones like hd560 and sundara the volume was at 2-3 clock all the time. I guess this was intentional as it doesn't have gain mode. Volume from 7 clock to 1 clock are just for IEMs and beyond 2 clock the power/volume increases very fast.
No bluetooth or remote is a big bummer for many.
The ports like 4.4mm are bit tight compared to fiio's and xduoo's.
Dac section could be improved.

Apologies for long review but I like to compare devices together to find which one is better.

In the end the StAmp really surprised me and did reminded me why I liked Earmen products like tramp in past.