Previously, I owned FiiO's L1, their cheapest LOD. It worked very well, and was perfect for plugging into an external amp. My iPod's headphone jack has shorting and distortion problems, this gave me a secondary output AND bypasses the somewhat bright internal amp of the iPod. I would plug the LOD into a FiiO E5, and that into a cassette adapter for my car stereo. The signal became much stronger, sound quality is clearer than and more articulate than before... It sounded like I replaced the speaker drivers, and better than the FM radio.
Unfortunately, I got line-out greedy, used the L1 portably while my iPod was in a pants pocket, and the L1's cable split and frayed quickly at the dock connection end (negligible strain relief). With the L11, I can
- plug in any cable with a 3.5mm plug without the LOD in danger of fraying and becoming useless.
- use the same mini-USB cable to charge my iPod & phone (and mini wifi router)
- have a "true" LOD functionality where volume is fixed at line level, leaving volume control and gain to an external amp.
- I can plug my cassette adapter directly into the LOD without double-amping through the E5 or using a female-to-female adapter.
This also works great connecting my iPod's library to my receiver or, of course, a headphone amp to use headphones with.
*Note for n00bs: this does not bypass the iPod's internal DAC, it outputs an analogue signal through the 3.5mm jack. I wouldn't be too concerned though: in a mobile environment, there will probably be enough environmental noise that you wouldn't be able to hear the difference made by an external DAC, and the iPod's DAC has good resolution anyway.