HIFIMAN Express HM-101 Portable USB Sound Card Review

Will one of the smallest and affordable sound card ever produced live up to its name?

First off, let’s start of with the build quality and oh boy, is it great. The build quality on the Express HM-101 is truly, just about as good as it gets, coming from a company like HIFIMAN. If you’ve ever tried HIFIMAN’s other great products, such as their headphones line or their other amps, you would know the build quality you’re getting. This isn’t one of those cheap, plastic-ky built-in-China products, but rather, I dare say, a work of art. Constructed entirely out of hard plastic and beautiful steel, it’s just as attractive as any amp you can find out there. This isn’t exactly light for its size but neither is it heavy, which is an advantage since it exudes a luxury feel to it. Before we go any further, let’s talking about shipping and it’s really satisfactory – only around 4 days of waiting time. To think that this is coming from China and that it’s travelling a few thousand miles, 4 days is really reasonable. What makes me happier though, is that it’s only priced at $30, therefore making it really apparent that HIFIMAN isn’t taking the cheap way out to ship with the cheapest route the can find, unlike many other companies out there.

Right out of the plastic box it comes with, you get a really simple manual and some diagrams. Nothing like the obnoxious 30 – 40 pages manuals you’re used to. As an added bonus, this manual comes in both English and Chinese, so it’ll definitely benefit their Chinese-speaking audiences. You’ll also get a USB 2.0 (I presume) to MicroUSB cable and of course, the sound card itself, wrapped in plastic. Picking it up, you’ll really notice how small this amp is – it’s only about two thirds of my palm. HIFIMAN calls it “as small as a matchbox” and I can’t disagree. It’s true. But it’s not all good on the exterior only. On the insides, HIFIMAN decided to use one of the best sound qualities USB D/A convertor chip Burr-brown PCM2702 as a key component driving the amp. Plugging the amp into your computer will illuminate a blue power button, which you can hit if you want to pause the amp from working. Activating it couldn’t be easier on a Mac, with the only thing you need to do is changing the Sound option in the Preferences tab.

Now let’s talk about the sound coming out of this tiny thing and there are some great things and a small disadvantage.  Immediately after plugging in my headphones (the Shure SRH-440), I realized how lush the mids and highs were. The amp also significantly tightens the low end, allowing you to hear some of the details you’ve never heard before. For those of you who usually plug the headphone into your computer, you would notice a clear difference. As an added bonus, you also get more volume out of it – everything can be heard louder and clearer. Vocals sound closer to you due to the elimination of most background noises. However, there is one downside if you’re using a headphone or earphone that does not require a lot of power – interference. While it’s not a major issue, in some cases, there’s a slight hiss in the background, so it’s something you should take note. Overall, the positives far outweigh the negatives. By far, when you factor the price in.

All in all, I can highly recommend the Express HM-101 to anyone out there who is looking to improve the quality of music coming out of his or her computer with a cheap and beautiful amp. Oh, let’s not forget about its price too – amazing.

Overall: 9.6 / 10

Highly Recommended

Thanks to Zhang Lu from HIFIMAN for sending this out for review.

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