This year, although mobile phone listening to songs is popular among the masses, for those who have the pursuit of sound quality, it is still a HIFI player specializing in audio. Especially for friends who have heard about MP3 all the way in the campus era (such as myself), the music player has more different feelings. Today, I want to share with you the new product EROS A launched by the veteran manufacturer Patriot (aigo) with the sound brand "Aiyueshi" with the product concept of creating "national good things". This is a pure DAP that features an AKM Professional DAC and has a single-ended/balanced dual output, perfect for burners who are just getting into the pit. Let's take a look at its specific performance:
The product packaging is an outer envelope + inner box-style envelope design, through the box painting on the positive and negative fuselage effect display can be a general understanding of its appearance and design elements.
In addition to the player body, there is another instruction manual and a USB-C port data/charging cable, and there is nothing else. There is no standard storage sleeve (unfortunately, there is no official leather case for sale), the film has been pasted at the factory, and there is no spare film. In terms of content, I will not show it, just look at the "protagonist":
When I first got the EROS A, I felt that it was smaller than expected, and the size of 97*48*13mm should be petite and delicate in a group of national bricks, and it would not cause a burden in the pocket of the pants.
The use of the aluminium alloy housing makes the entire player light and durable. Coupled with the sharp edges, its tough and handsome face comes to the face. The design of the frame scrub, the front back mirror surface, and the irregular geometric cut edge at the bottom get rid of the immutable flattening treatment, making the fuselage more three-dimensional, of course, if it can be treated with different colors, it will be more eye-catching.
The above picture shows a comparison with its own Q2, you can see that the EROS A fuselage is narrower than it is, but the length is not too long. Both are similar in size and both are pocket-level. Although the fuselage has edges and angles, under the careful polishing of CNC multi-channel processes, there is no feeling of scraping hands when holding. Small sizes are not only responsive to touch, but the thumb makes it easy to control the big picture.
The EROS A specially upgraded on the screen, the 3.1-inch 480 * 800 resolution TFT screen display effect is not bad, and support touch, coupled with the full lamination process, even if the screen is off state, it is also integrated, there will be no sense of separation caused by the previous large piece of ash. Of course, if the daily listening to songs is simple, you can also quickly blindly operate through the physical keys on both sides of the fuselage.
Speaking of keys, all keys of EROS A are round keys, with the power key at the top to the right, and the key is a little hidden with an indicator light that lights up after charging/booting. If it can be treated in red, it will undoubtedly be more eye-catching.
Volume adjustment and playback control keys are separated into the left and right ends of the fuselage, it is interesting that the volume keys are not integrated strip processing, nor do they use the popular roller sliding, but +/- separate, long press can be adjusted continuously.
The right three are up and down curve switching and broadcast /temporary keys, the feel of the button is still OK, the force feedback is moderate, it is not soft and loose, the button layout is reasonable and simple, and it is very easy to get started.
Below the side is also the TF card slot (up to 512GB of storage). EROS A doesn't have built-in storage, so you need a plug-in card to play music.
Side corner reference information close-up: The built-in battery capacity of the fuselage is 1500 mAh, which can be fully charged in three hours, and the music can be played continuously for 18 hours on a charge, which is calculated by listening to songs and listening to songs for 4 hours a day, and charging every 4 days is enough.
Bottom of the interface at a glance: EROS A has two headphone jacks of single-ended 3.5mm and balanced 2.5mm, supports LINE OUT analog output and SPDIF digital audio signal output, can do digital audio turntable, and the gameplay is still very rich. The Type-C port on the side also supports USB DAC decoding (can be connected to a PC as an external sound card, but you need to go to the official website to download the exclusive driver).
The back panel of EROS has always been classic, and the glass mirror surface is contrasted with the gold seal engraved "focus on sound" nameplate and line outline, which is quite recognizable. This is also the heritage design of the EROS player family. However, the beauty is beautiful, but it is very easy to get fingerprint oil stains, and there is no leather case, so you need to pay attention to cleaning when using.
EROS A's system adopts the home-developed EROS RTOS, and the bottom part of the main interface lists four major functional options, namely music, collection, playback, and settings. Getting started is very simple, if you have more songs, in addition to folders, albums, artists, styles to find categories, you can also directly swipe the letters to search for songs.
In terms of functions, in addition to listening to songs, it even supports the e-book function, which is really a bit like the taste of reading books with MP3 before.
E-books support a choice of large, medium and small fonts and background colors, but only support TXT format. Fragmented time, while listening to songs and reading novels is also a pleasant thing.
Of course, as a professional HIFI player, the main business of EROS A is naturally "music". It adopts AKM's professional decoding chip, supporting APE, FLAC, WMA, AAC, OGG, MP3, WAV, AIFF, DSF, DIFF and other mainstream formats (up to 32bit/192kHz mastering level audio playback). And support 4.2 version of two-way Bluetooth, Qualcomm's APTX and APTX-HD, as well as Soda's LDAC lossless decoding format are also perfectly supported.
EROS A supports adjustments such as equalizer, high and low gain, channel balance, digital filtering, etc., to get a more suitable effect to your own listening preferences (surprisingly, it even supports HiBy Link), which will not be described in detail here. It is worth mentioning that the system also has a screensaver clock display, and every time the screen is lit, you can see the current time, which is still quite convenient.
As for other options in the system settings, including backlight brightness/time, font size, theme mode, power saving/sleep shutdown time, etc., they can also be set by themselves.
Specifically, let's talk about the listening performance, with the BGVP DM8 moving iron on hand 2.5mm balance, the sound of EROS A is clean and mellow, the sound base is warm, the tone is full, the vocal stretch is fresh and not sweet, just like the sky is clear, the warm sun is rising, which makes people feel happy. The low frequency sense is moderate, there is a certain cohesion and texture, and the diving and elasticity are in place. The instrumental separation is excellent, there is no ambiguity, and the detail control is also good. High frequency is bright but not prickly, has a certain overtone, good ductility, strong resolution, and full of transparency. In general, the player can play the potential of the headphones, the three-frequency connection is balanced and natural, and the sound is smooth and durable.
On the audition track, we specially selected the well-known Eagle Band's "Jiazhou Hotel", EROS A can express the unique texture and elasticity of the guitar in the song, the lines vibrate smoothly and smoothly, the low frequency retracts freely, the sense of volume is abundant, the separation between the instruments is quite excellent, there is no clutter, the sound is clear and mellow, the sound field is wide, the horizontal and vertical extensions are in place, and there is a sense of live atmosphere when listening.
The girls' part chose the "The Meaning of Travel", which she never tired of listening to, Chen Qizhen's voice has always been lazy and immature, and the opening violin and piano sound are bright and natural, and there is no unnecessary embellishment. And Chen's voice rhyme and details in the low chant and shallow singing are restored in place, the emotional interpretation is true and vivid, and the familiar lyrics sound, it is difficult to forget, and self-contemplation.
Summary: As a thousand-yuan audio player, EROS A's performance is remarkable, first of all, its appearance is simple and generous, the geometric cut-out "chin" with the mirror back plate is full, and the delicate and compact body plate meets the needs of easy to carry. The system interface and operation logic are simple and clear, and it is easy to get started. The sound is popular and durable, coupled with excellent endurance performance and the addition of the balance mouth, it is still very recommended for friends who are new to the burn.