If it was $49, that must have been at the beginning of their kickstarter campaign, which would have been pretty much the equivalent of getting the BK's for $49 lol. It's still amazing value at the retail price of $99 (that I bought mine for), and is definitely one of the best "price to joy" quotient audio gizmo's I've bought.
Anyway, like chinmie says, yes it can drive high impedance earbuds. I don't know how it does it (Canadian Rye Whiskey perhaps?), but it easily drives the 320ohm Zen 1's in SE mode to very loud volumes, and even the 600ohm AKG Sextetts which at full volume on my S7 & Radsone, is as loud as I want it, and which somehow sounds amazingy good.