I listened to it for a while at my house before the Omaha meet, first impressions were quite good. The DAC section is on par with my TC7520, which is to be expected. I'm not really much of a DAC believer anyway. But the amp section is superb! Really brought out the best in my SR225i. Deep, deep bass with the same amount of impact and no muddiness, with beautiful highs- and do I even need to say anything about the Grado mids? Brought PRaT to a whole new level. I really enjoyed it as an amp from my TC7520, this is where I felt it was suited best. Out of my Fuze, I really didn't think it gave me better enough performance to warrant carrying such a huge device, though I didn't test any IEMs with it (except for the GR8 at the meet, which I didn't care for anyway).
But that brings up a new conundrum- Where does this DAC/amp fit in? To be honest, I'm not sure. My best guess would be "transportable source". If you're the type who has to do a lot of traveling for business or the like, then I imagine you can also afford to drop ~$600 on a top-notch transportable source. This is the perfect laptop companion. If I fit into this scenario, then I would jump right on the V2. I truly couldn't imagine getting better performance without lugging around full-sized gear.
However, if you're looking for a portable amp/companion for your iPod or similar, then I'd turn my attention elsewhere. Again, I'm not sure how it fares with IEMs, but there are be better options if you want to power your ESW9, HD25-1-II, or whatever else.
Likewise, it's not at all a desktop amp. While it fared well in my situation, I have no desktop amp, so how could it not! There were several amps I heard at the meet that were considerably better than the iQube at 1/2-3/4 the cost. For example, I preferred the Corda Headfive and the Whiplash Audio Minimax (Which was AMAZING) both to the iQube V2.
However, if what you're looking for is a laptop/iRiver H120/140 companion, then look no further. This thing sounds exceedingly nice when you feed it digital or a high-quality (Higher quality than an stock iPod could output) analog output.
Finally, a note on build quality- I quite like the feel of the device, but it has a hint of cheapness in the plastic (or is it some kind of metal? I don't know) and especially in the volume pot- it can definitely be scratchy.
But these are minor quibbles when you got the sound that you do! I'm looking forward to other impressions of the iQube V2. I know it sadly didn't get much attention at the meet, so maybe someone else will take the plunge
