After a little more than a day, curiosity wins out and I take a brief listen into the album Changing Places by the Tord Gustavson Trio: The subtly differentiated "Deep As Love" as well as "Graceful Touch" with its quiet intro on the drums had already thrilled me when perfomed by the OOR, and, if my memory does not deceive me, the ERCO reproduces both the transients and the inner dynamics in a similarly convincing manner. At this point, it’s already clear to me that the sound of the now third member of the Ferrum family also has that certain something that makes the OOR particularly special. Since the latter had already left my listening room last fall, I am of course not able to evaluate how close the ERCO comes to the OOR. However, both headphone amplifiers clearly share the same sonic genes: lovely!

After a few more days, a Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ finds its way back home from a colleague, which I then also connect to the Mac with an ordinary cable, after it having completed a warming-up phase of several hours as well: With the Mytek, minimally less air surrounds the instruments and the acoustic space seems a bit smaller. The ERCO performs simply a bit more fluent and beguiling: the music takes the center stage and displaces any thoughts about the technology - what has already been the case with the OOR. The Mytek, on the other hand, is rather triggering memories of the SPL Phonitor in its precise and sober way of playing.

In order to evaluate the influence of the HYPSOS on the ERCO's sonic performance, the latter moves to a more refined environment: It finds a new home in one of the Artesania equipment supports in the listening room and is supposed to source its data from the USB output of the Auralic Aries G2.1. However, this doesn’t work even after one or the other reboot attempt of the Aries. Should the ERCO's USB-C be the cause for this misbehaviour? I'll talk to Marcin Hamerla about the problem and keep you posted - although I'm sure that very few hifi enthusiasts will pair a high-grade streamer with a headphone amp/converter combo. In my system, nevertheless, this variant is simply very useful: This way the ERCO is fed with optimally prepared digital signals, while the HYPSOS is in close proximity. That's why I am not about to give up yet, and so I connect Aries and ERCO via S/PDIF by means of an Audioquest Wild. And this works right away. To test the function I choose Arild Andersen's album Mira and instead of relying on the already often mentioned title "Raijin" I start with "Bygone": Tommy Smith plays his tenor saxophone in a very melodious and mellifluous manner, without any sharpness or harshness. Paolo Vinaccia dabs the rhythm with cymbals and a reticently struck drum, and Arild Andersen lets his bass sing warmly, even somewhat buzzy. The trio seems to perform within a larger space: A lot of air surrounds the instruments. A real pleasure!

And the HYPSOS intensifies this enjoyment even more: The sonic imaging appears to be even more free and open, the one or other detail somewhat takes a step beyond the perception threshold, double bass and bass drum simply get closer to the point, but without sacrificing the intensive musical flow. ERCO, HYPSOS and the Peacock let you revel in euphony. However, this is by no means to say that you can't enjoy music via headphones in an extremely satisfied way without the optional power supply. To find out how the HYPSOS behaves when the ERCO is merely operating as a converter, it makes its way into the living room. I activate the Bypass mode, connect the balanced outputs of the ERCO to Einstein's The Preamp and the coaxial S/PDIF input to the corresponding output of the Aries Femto – and yes, you guessed it: the USB input of the ERCO is not recognized by the Femto either. Whether it's due to the coaxial connection type or not, I can't say, but I’ve already experienced Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15 in the living room in a more vibrant way. And the spatial imaging seems a bit limited as well. As a pure converter, the ERCO in conjunction with its standard switching power supply doesn’t convince me as part of my extremely high-resolution system that it has become over time. That all changes completely when the Ferrum converter is powered by the HYPSOS. The ERCO suddenly sounds like a DAC from a much higher price range. In this application, I would not want to do without the HYPSOS under any circumstances. With it, the ERCO endulges with a large, very realistic sounding image, gripping dynamics, a transparent performance with strong timbres, and details that are nicely integrated into the musical flow. If you want to use the ERCO as a converter in a high-quality system, you can't avoid investing in a HYPSOS. This combination then offers a highly customer-friendly price/sound ratio!

However, it remains to be seen how the ERCO sounds as a pure preamp. In order to get this done, I first play a few records on the Brinkmann Avance equipped with Breuer and Titan i, connected in unbalanced mode to a Keces Sphono assigned for equalization and preamplification, which for its part is wired to the Einstein preamp. Before starting this review, I had not heard any LPs in this system configuration in the living room, and I am surprised which impact the exchange of the matured Brinkmann Marconi, of which there is meanwhile a MKII version around, against the Einstein has brought especially in terms of spatiality. The Preamp really doesn't make it easy for the ERCO to compete, but the Ferrum immediately wins you over with its open and dynamic performance. Its spatial imaging is as well convincing, even if the Einstein – while retailing for a more than six times higher price - still suggests a minimally larger soundstage. And, even if the ERCO in conjunction with the HYPSOS would offer preamplification services alone, it could rightly be praised as a bargain. Especially when paired to the optional power supply, it shows off both as a very convincing D/A converter and a headphone amplifier, which doesn’t by no means intend to deny its sonic relationship to the excellent OOR: Undoubted, this is Ferrum’s third big thing!