HEM OEM – The makers of the popular ferrum brand employ a team of 7-8 in-house engineers. It's an unusually big brain trust for a smaller company. During R&D of their ferrum Erco DAC/headfi machine, this team created a proprietary digital solution. It combines all digital receiving and signal routing on one board and codes USB HiD, DoP, full MQA, signal level functionality and 32/384PCM and DSD256 support onto an ARM Cortex M4 Core processor to avoid separate XMOS chips. The resultant 5 x 7cm red Serce [Polish for 'heart'] module supports board-to-board connections for USB 2.0, up to 4 x AES3-S/PDIF, I²S over HDMI, ARC with CEC controller, IR decoder and internal I²S for any extension. It aims at smaller hifi boutiques as a convenient OEM solution for advanced digital machines. Sales will happen through HEM since ferrum remains reserved for consumer machines.
