ЦАПы — EarMen Tradutto DAC

The Tradutto is a fully balanced desktop DAC with a built-in Bluetooth receiver from EarMen. It was launched around 2021 at USD 799 and was later offered at USD 399. Its chassis is cut from one solid piece of aluminium, and it is supplied with a USB cable, a power adapter and a remote control.

Key specs that matter

An ESS ES9038Q2M chip converts the signal, and USB arrives through an XMOS 16-core XU216 controller. Bluetooth 5.1 runs on a Qualcomm QCC5124 chip with AAC, SBC, aptX, aptX HD and aptX LL at 44.1 to 192 kHz and 16 to 24 bit. PCM is accepted up to 32 bit and 768 kHz, DSD natively up to DSD512 and as DoP up to DSD256, and DXD at 768 kHz is supported. A hardware MQA renderer handles MQA, MQA Studio and MQA Core. Inputs are USB, optical, coaxial and Bluetooth. The RCA output delivers 2 V RMS at 0 dBFS with an output impedance of 300 ohm, and the 4.4 mm balanced output delivers 4 V RMS with 600 ohm. THD+N is 0.0003%, signal to noise ratio is above 116 dB single-ended and above 122 dB balanced, and frequency response is flat within 0.014 dB single-ended and 0.003 dB balanced. The unit measures 150 x 30 x 150 mm and weighs 550 g.

Engineering and use context

A fully balanced design carries every channel as a pair of mirror-image signals from the converter to the output. Interference picked up equally by both halves cancels at a balanced input, and the two halves together give twice the voltage of the single-ended output, which is why the balanced figures for level and noise are better. The output stage uses SoundPlus OPA1642 op-amps, supported by WIMA film capacitors, audio-grade electrolytic capacitors and low-noise MELF resistors. The XMOS controller receives the USB stream from a computer and passes it to the converter, and it is responsible for the high PCM and DSD rates. The hardware MQA renderer performs the final unfolding step of MQA files inside the DAC. Bluetooth reception is built in, so a phone can play to the system without a separate receiver.

Pairing

The RCA sockets feed an integrated amplifier or preamplifier, and an adapter cable to XLR links the balanced output to amplifiers with XLR inputs. Because the output impedance is relatively high, amplifier inputs of 10 kOhm or more are the better match, and a separate headphone amplifier is needed for headphones.

Alternatives

The EarMen Eagle is the brand's compact USB stick DAC.