[sbank]

RMAF is Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. It's the top show in the US in many's opinions for high end audio.

 

[animalsrush]

Thanks.. Being on this site for such a long time i thought i knew all the acronyms.

 

[Chimera-se]

Well, I was greeted by a beautiful little amp in my mailbox tonight! This little guy is gorgeous! Thanks again, Justin! Well done! It's worth the wait people, for sure! Ok, time to go play...

 

[otello66]

 
Quote:

Up to #260 now.  After RMAF, I'll be shipping at a rate of 50/week.  I may be able to get 10 or 20 done before that.  The ones labeled as Private take 1/2 as much time to build because there is only 1 email address to deal with, 1 shipping address, and no combination of power plugs, USB cables, TWag LODs, special instructions etc.

You may be able to get 10 or 20 done before RMAF?  Do try.  Selfish interest here.  According to your list, next black unit is mine.

 

 

[Spiritboxer]

Quote:

Justin may be the worst businessman on the planet. After waiting patiently for months I received a shipping notification last week that my slim was about to be shipped. Today he notified me that the notification was a mistake and I would have to wait two more weeks because he ran out of silver enclosures. I want my money back!

Right or wrong this was still kind of a cheap shot on my part, kicking a guy when he's down is not the way I do things. Sooooo, movin' on..........
 

 

[socrates63]

Hang in there, guys (says the guy who was 10th on the pre-order list

). The Pico Slim is worth the wait. Great clean sound in such a tiny package -- the best portable I've owned. Some musician friends of mine preferred the sound from the Slim to some desktop amps.

 

[animalsrush]

You know all the great reviews of the amp are not helping with the patience factor.

 

[Kpalsm]

I prefer the sound out of my iPod 5.5 > Pico Slim to that of the headphone jack on my h/k AVR254

Dunno if that means much, but there ya go.

 

[justin w.]

some good news regarding the Pico Slim...unexpectedly, I was in contact with another company that is able to polish, anodize, and laser engrave the enclosures.  Among other things, they offered 1 week turnaround time on orders compared to what I currently experience, which is random anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months.  I sent them the next >250 sets of enclosures, and got on a plane to visit them.  Already they are polished and anodized, and I spent nearly 6 hours working with them to set up the laser engraving the way I wanted it to be.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to carry them all back with me because there is probably 2 full days of laser engraving.  What this means is the wait time at the moment is probably 4-6 weeks instead of 8 weeks, and will be In Stock by the end of the year.  Also, due to the increased efficiency, I will be able to manufacture more enclosure sets at a given time which will reduce the chance that there will be a gap between shipments which has currently been an issue.
 
unfortunately no pictures, I would have liked to photograph each step in the manufacturing process but it wouldn't have been allowed.

 

[animalsrush]

Quote:

some good news regarding the Pico Slim...unexpectedly, I was in contact with another company that is able to polish, anodize, and laser engrave the enclosures.  Among other things, they offered 1 week turnaround time on orders compared to what I currently experience, which is random anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months.  I sent them the next >250 sets of enclosures, and got on a plane to visit them.  Already they are polished and anodized, and I spent nearly 6 hours working with them to set up the laser engraving the way I wanted it to be.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to carry them all back with me because there is probably 2 full days of laser engraving.  What this means is the wait time at the moment is probably 4-6 weeks instead of 8 weeks, and will be In Stock by the end of the year.  Also, due to the increased efficiency, I will be able to manufacture more enclosure sets at a given time which will reduce the chance that there will be a gap between shipments which has currently been an issue.
 
unfortunately no pictures, I would have liked to photograph each step in the manufacturing process but it wouldn't have been allowed.

This is great news .. But does this mean for us who are above 260 the wait is still 4-6 weeks ? Or can you get some earlier and ship them out

 

[justin w.]

Quote:

This is great news .. But does this mean for us who are above 260 the wait is still 4-6 weeks ? Or can you get some earlier and ship them out

no.  i would say the wait for new orders is 4-6 weeks.  existing orders i will be able to start after next week 

 

[animalsrush]

That is excellent news ... I am going on a long trip end of october hopefully i get mine by then.. Thanks for the quick response .. Eagerly waiting for the amp

 

[Jalo]

Hi Justin, I received the Slim (#249 although I was #234 on the shipping list) a week ago and was very please about the condition it came in.  I do have a question regarding the volume pot though.  Is it right that it starts at the 6:00 o'clock position and only goes up to the 3:00 o'clock position?  I thought it was suppose to stop back at the 6:00 o'clock position.  
 
My second question or comment is that I receive no sound from turning the volume pot from 6:00 o'clock to almost 12:00 o'clock and then sound comes in at around 12:00 and it goes up really fast from 12:00 o'clock to 3:00 o'clock (max position).  I ended up listening at the 1:00 o'clock position.    Although there are 239 steps, I don't think it benefited me for the first 160 steps (2/3).  I wish the usable volume range between 12:00 and 3:00 o'clock can be better defined with finer tuning or more linear tuning (i.e. equal gain between steps).  It seems like the steps may not be linear throughout the range meaning the steps at the beginning may be more linear than the steps toward the end where volume jumps much more so between steps.  From the way the volume behaves and how long the battery can last (60 hours), it looks like it is a Class B design, right?  You answered in one of your earlier posts to the question why there is no gain setting on the SLIM by saying that the SLIM will increase volume automatically when it is called for, I wonder if the slim sacrifies the ability to tune linearly for the feature of auto volume control?  
 
So far with about 40 hours on the Slim, the sound is very good.  I particularly like the fast, tight, and punchy nature of the sound.  It is very transparent and quiet to my satisfaction. For the package that it comes in (small size and good look), the Slim is definitely one of the top small portable of choice.  My set up is Ipod classic>>ALO SXC LOD>>SLIM>>JH13. I will post more observations once I live with it long enough to be familiar with the SQ.  Thanks.

 

[justin w.]

Quote:

Hi Justin, I received the Slim (#249 although I was #234 on the shipping list) a week ago and was very please about the condition it came in.  I do have a question regarding the volume pot though.  Is it right that it starts at the 6:00 o'clock position and only goes up to the 3:00 o'clock position?  I thought it was suppose to stop back at the 6:00 o'clock position.  
 
My second question or comment is that I receive no sound from turning the volume pot from 6:00 o'clock to almost 12:00 o'clock and then sound comes in at around 12:00 and it goes up really fast from 12:00 o'clock to 3:00 o'clock (max position).  I ended up listening at the 1:00 o'clock position.    Although there are 239 steps, I don't think it benefited me for the first 160 steps (2/3).  I wish the usable volume range between 12:00 and 3:00 o'clock can be better defined with finer tuning or more linear tuning (i.e. equal gain between steps).  It seems like the steps may not be linear throughout the range meaning the steps at the beginning may be more linear than the steps toward the end where volume jumps much more so between steps.  From the way the volume behaves and how long the battery can last (60 hours), it looks like it is a Class B design, right?  You answered in one of your earlier posts to the question why there is no gain setting on the SLIM by saying that the SLIM will increase volume automatically when it is called for, I wonder if the slim sacrifies the ability to tune linearly for the feature of auto volume control?  
 
So far with about 40 hours on the Slim, the sound is very good.  I particularly like the fast, tight, and punchy nature of the sound.  It is very transparent and quiet to my satisfaction. For the package that it comes in (small size and good look), the Slim is definitely one of the top small portable of choice.  My set up is Ipod classic>>ALO SXC LOD>>SLIM>>JH13. I will post more observations once I live with it long enough to be familiar with the SQ.  Thanks.

I think a lot of people are missing the point of the digital volume control.  255 steps does not mean you are going to use all of them -- at least not with your setup.  Try changing your iPod Classic for a high-output DAC.  Now you'll be shifting your steps down by about 20.  Try a headphone more sensitive than the JH13 (many IEMs are) and you'll be moving down another 10 steps.  As long as you can set the volume exactly where you want it to be, then it is doing what it's supposed to be doing.  I agree that the first ~50 steps are probably overkill.  The first ~160 steps though, as you claim, would take you all the way to only -30dB attenuation.  I can tell you that with the Pico DAC+JH13s, -30dB would be ear bleeding loud.  
 
There is another amp w/ a digital volume control where "zero" is -60dB and I find this to be already my normal listening level with the Pico DAC and Westone ES3X, which are a little more sensitive than JH13s.  For the Pico Slim, zero is -110dB.  To have true silence at zero, for most setups, the max attenuation needs to be somewhere around -90dB to -100dB.  So, it is a little overkill, but maybe only by about 10% the # of steps.  I don't think increasing the degrees per step from about 1 degree to 1.1 degree is going to be noticeable.
 
And the reason there is no gain setting, is because there already is a gain control.  The volume knob is actually a variable gain control on this amp.

 

[bcwang]

I like the volume control range so far and have not used up the available headroom for any of my headphones yet.  With the SE530 I can hear sound starting at maybe 7 o'clock, and can use it at 9 o'clock.  So I'm glad there is flexibility for very low volume.  The SE530 is not the most sensitive IEM either so having the  -110db attenuation is good for other headphones I may encounter in the future.  I'm glad Justin designed it this way, this is really with IEMs in mind which someone with sensitive hearing and sensitive headphones will appreciate.