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Will a line out dock(LOD) drain an ipod's battery life?

post #1 of 3
1/28/12 at 10:50pm
Thread Starter 

I'm planning on getting a portable amp and an l3 line out dock to use with an ipod classic. One review on amazon says the line out dock seriously drains the ipod's life. Is this true or this an exaggeration?

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post #2 of 3
1/29/12 at 1:08am

No. Voltage and current are required for the source (an iPod in this case) to drive the headphone. Line-out is high in voltage (which give you a high volume) but low in current. This is because most amp you connect to the LOD have really high input impedance and ohm law says that the higher the impedance, the least current it needs. The input impedance of an amp should be high enough that it is close to being 'invisible' to the iPod, so the iPod is not actually driving the amp because very little current is going from the iPod to the amp. That's the reason why LOD doesn't drain iPod's battery. Of course, iPod still need to generate a high enough voltage for the signal - but iPod is doing that regardless of whether a LOD is used or not as the same high voltage signal is used by the internal amp section anyway.

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post #3 of 3
1/29/12 at 1:24am
Thread Starter 

Ok thanks a lot!

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