Closer to the Music: Ferrum ERCO DAC

Like a top chef who uses his ingredients freshly and grown from his own garden, we integrated parts of the awarded HYPSOS technology and lend some of OOR’s magic to lay the first bricks for ERCO. Then we proceeded to add our culminated 20 years’ worth of experience in making DA converters. And man, did we pull it off. We managed to get the best out of our two winners and put it in our new sibling, adding awesome DA conversion to the mix.

Clearing the path for high end audio

Perfect mix of flagship Ferrum technology combined with high grade in house developed Digital to Analog conversion. Choose from three digital and one analog input.

Proprietary Technology

Industry leading technology is applied. All digital ports are optimised for audio, MQA decoding and rendering is optimised for use with internal ARM chip.

Suited for high end personal audio

Connect your favourite headphones to the balanced 4,4mm jack or unbalanced 6,35mm headphone jack outputs or powered loudspeakers on your desktop to the XLR or RCA outputs to perform to their max.

Truly Balanced

The signal path is truly balanced from early D/A stage and becomes truly balanced using the RCA inputs.

Discrete/IC hybrid design

Ultra-wideband ICs fine tuned for audio use to achieve the best possible analog quality.

Enhanced transparency

The whole design remains focussed on a balanced and very transparent sound signature, making listening fatigue something of the past.

Ease of use

Hassle free operation. Only three knobs on the front panel to control the most important settings.

Ferrum Power Link

ERCO performs very, very good right out of the box. But ERCO is made to excel above and beyond when used together with HYPSOS. We use what we dubbed our Ferrum Power Link (FPL in short) to connect the two. HYPSOS then will perform to its maximum, unleashing unheard musicality from the combination with ERCO.

The same stylishly understated looks exactly like our flagship models. Just to camouflage our industry leading technology which house inside ERCO.

Fully balanced from A to Z, even right after the RCA inputs, and packed with industry leading digital technology. Brightness of the logo on ERCO’s front can be dimmed.

Combine ERCO with HYPSOS to unleash unheard of musicality. Together they will excel above and beyond.

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The name ERCO (not pronounced airco but ˈert͡so) is Esperanto for ore. We took to Esperanto for the name inspired by its creator Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, who used to live around the corner from our offices near Warsaw. Zamenhof started developing Esperanto in his childhood while still in school, pursuing peace around the world where one language would bring together humankind. We want to do the same through pure and honest music reproduction. In the end it brings peace to the mind.

Unique output cable design: two wires delivering the power and two wires providing the feedback to ensure flat voltage at every moment. We named this technique Ferrum Power Link (FPL) and it eliminates the harmful effects of the cable's resistance effectively improving transient response. The current delivery speed at the powered device's input is significantly improved.

ERCO comes with a carefully selected DC power adapter. To get the most out of ERCO you can connect it with HYPSOS using our proprietary Ferrum Power Link DC power cable. This FPL cable can be ordered separately.

ERCO

1795

EUR/USD

ERCO fully balanced headphone DAC/AMP
Proprietary IC power amp design
Proprietary optimised-for-audio digital inputs
Proprietary optimised MQA rendering and decoding for ARM chip
Proprietary 4-pin Ferrum connector for HYPSOS
Balanced 4,4mm jack and unbalanced 6,35mm jack headphone outputs
Balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA line outputs

BUY

Headphone output gain: balanced -5.8 dB, +6 dB, +17.8 dB; single ended -11.8 dB, 0 dB, +11.8 dB
Operation: fully balanced, proprietary IC power amp
Power inputs: 5.5/2.5 mm DC connector center positive; proprietary FPL 4-pin DC connector (FPL)
Analog inputs: RCA (Consumer level; Pro option with future software update)
Digital inputs: USB-C (MQA, up to PCM 32-bit/384 kHz, DSD256, DoP128); S/PDIF coaxial (MQA, up to PCM 24-bit/192 kHz, DoP64); S/PDIF optical (MQA, up to PCM 24-bit/96 kHz guaranteed, should work up to PCM 24-bit/192 kHz and DoP64 – depends of user’s optical cable and transmitter)
DAC chip: ESS Sabre ES9028PRO
PCM sample rates: 44.1 / 48 / 88.2 / 96 / 176.4 / 192 / 352.8 / 384 kHz
DSD sample rates: 2.8224 / 3.072 / 5.6448 / 6.144 / 11.2896 / 12.288 MHz
MQA: decoder and renderer (USB, OPTO and COAX inputs)
DAC resolution: PCM up to 384k@32bit; DSD up to 256 (11.2 MHz / 12.2 MHz)
Headphone jack outputs: balanced 4.4 mm (TRRRS); unbalanced 6.35 mm (TRS)
Line outputs: balanced XLR; unbalanced RCA (both Consumer level; Pro with future software update)
Volume control: analogue with bypass option (bypass for line outputs only)
Frequency response: 10 Hz – 30 kHz (+/- 0.05 dB); 10 Hz – > 200 kHz (+/- 1 dB)
Output power unbalanced: 300 mW into 300 Ω; 1.7 W into 50 Ω
Output power balanced: 1.2 W into 300 Ω; 6.1 W into 50 Ω
THD on balanced output: < 0.00018% / -115 dB, 1 mW into 16 Ω; < 0.00018% / -115 dB, 100 mW into 16 Ω
THD on unbalanced output: < 0.00032% / -110 dB, 1 mW into 16 Ω; < 0.00057% / -105 dB, 100 mW into 16 Ω
Dynamic range analog: 130 dB (A-weighted)
Dynamic range digital: 120 dB (A-weighted)
Input impedance: 47 kΩ
Output impedance unbalanced: 22 Ω on pre-amp
Output impedance balanced: 44 Ω on pre-amp
Output impedance Headphones: < 0.3 Ω
Power consumption: idle <15 W
Power adapter: 100-240 V_AC to 22-30 V_DC
Dimensions (W x D x H): 21.7 cm x 20.6 cm x 5 cm / 8.6” x 8.1” x 2.0”
Weight: 1.8 kg / 3.97 lbs