The manual says around 3 hours.   Pico just arrived =)  Very nice design and engineering.  Thanks Justin!

So, after a couple weeks, the pico DAC/amp has arrived.  Some observations:   - using the SM3  - no noise at all  - channel imbalance at very low volume.  Therefore I just lower foobar's volume and increase pico's volume. - using Audio Techinca A900  - compared to laptop headphone...

My laptop sounds like a sandstorm without a DAC

Lots of letters there.  I've decided to get the pico.  If I have time, I'll post observations.

Hmmmm but it doesn't work as a standalone amp.  Decisions decisions...   Quote: SM3*Pico, and SM3*dacport- which one gives the most neutral response?

Can you describe immersive?

Helloes, what is a good dac/amp combo for EarsSonics SM3?  I will be using it with my laptop using usb, but I'd like the possibility of optical/coax too.   I like neutral/flat FR sound.  Budget is max $400.   I was thinking iBasso D6, or pico dac/amp.

Thread revive... Does a DAC output a line-level signal? Does doing source->DAC->headphones result in hearing almost nothing?

Why aren't more portable amps designed with multi-cell rechargeable batteries (or in general, a larger input voltage)? Someone should design a portable amp that can use an external stick-on battery pack- for more voltage and/or current.

Playing a mkv with a flac track and Cyberlink causes a giant lag everywhere- like if you click a menu and highlight the entries, mouse lag. Also the video plays sometimes- depending on what I set my video decoder on. Wierd? I'll try CoreFLAC later.

How does a peak meter work? According to wikipedia, "As a rule, recording levels should be set so that they do not exceed the red area beyond 0 VU or only rarely. If set too high, the sound quality and frequency response is typically poorer at high recording levels, and clipping effects can be...

Ok. Setting ffdshow to output with LPCM mixed works for mp3, aac, and ogg. You just have to get MPC to use ffdshow, and not other filters. I cannot get ffdshow to decode flac for some reason. If you untick the flack boxes in MPC's internal filters, MPC won't play the flac. Can WMP play flac...

Let's talk about how applicable this method is. I find that for synthesized music like hardcore and trance, the sound becomes farther and less detailed/charaterized. It also can have too much of a echo at times, and sometimes sounds EQ'd. Perhaps this is because the music has been created to...

Er this is what happens when you install but don't enter the key: you get wierd noises out of the codec. Once you enter the key in, everything works fine.

Using mmg.exe (mkv merging tool) also works. Just drag the vob in, check only the audio track, and save as *.ac3 100% seems to solve the problem. Thank you. For others/reference, 200% sounds like dumping sand in the music.

Is there any way to quickly switch from this set-up to a non-Dolby set-up? Can you use Dolby Headphone with files that contain non-AC3 or DTS? ex. mp3, AAC,...

Yea, I have it in that order. However, compared to no before, I need to set the Dolby Headphone amplification at ~120% to get the same volume. Another separate thing- does anyone experience distortion? I only hear it in certain parts of some songs, and then other songs are fine.

On the Channel Mixer, if you have a 2ch (or less than 6ch) track, it turns it into a 6ch track. if you have a 6ch track, no change to the individual channel data. Are those statements correct? Also, does anyone find that using the Dolby Headphone DSP causes a relative volume decrease...

er BOOM! wow so fast I didn't even see what happened

If you put your amp on a heater, would that produce the same effect? Quicken the warm-up time?

Google: medieval software. You can also use their cue splitter if foobar doesn't turn out right.

You should also take into account hiss/electronic noise coming out from your pc/laptop -> soundcard/external DAC+amp

How's your netbook's hiss/electronic noise? If you amp from a headphone out jack, you will also amp all that garbage noise, so you might want to consider a DAC/amp combo.

You might want to specify your priorities- like visual quality, codec support, compatability, subtitles, etc. I find that wmp produces the darkest blacks, but wmp by itself without a codec pack stinks. mplayerc hc does a pretty nice job at the level issue- check its shaders. mplayec hc also...

Perhaps a poll would be easier? Something like 1)uses amp only outside, 2)uses dac only outside, 3)uses both amp+dac (seperates or combo) outside, 4)doesn't use outside. Or more general, outside and inside.