Confirmed! I found the setting the other day, but didn't listen long enough to verify that it was charging; my player was at 55% both before and after running through a few songs, so I couldn't tell if I was just keeping pace with charging or just being really good at battery life, lol. But I just realized I've been listening for several hours today, and confirmed battery is at 100%!
Much tougher call now that I have my 2.5 adapter with (turns put it was with me all along--I forgot about the "emergency" 2.5 to XLR adapter in my bag, lol).
Anyway, we're deep into "flavor preference" territory now. In both cases I've been using RS8 as a DAC only, with VC on Pendant and Stellia on V280. Here's what the setup looks like today:
In general, I prefer VC over Stellia, but in this case I think I'm liking Stellia better for a few reasons:
1. I know what I'm missing with Pendant vs Nautilus at home; Stellia is easier to drive (to full potential) and sounds pretty optimal out of V280.
2. All in all, Stellia is a bit more travel friendly--the Focal case is smaller than the ZMF Seahorse case, and Pendant is much bigger and heavier than V280. I do love having good tubes in the office, but the logistics are more challenging. Not to mention, my stabilized VCs are one of a kind, so I stress a little more taking them out of the house.
3. Stellia's strengths may be more aligned with my typical workday music choices. ZMF is easily my favorite "flavor" for getting lost in music, but during the workday I need to get lost in work. That tends to lead me to listen to stuff like trance or house tunes to keep energy levels up for coding marathons, whereas with ZMF on tubes I just want to sink into rich vocals and feel music emotionally. Stellia is a good fit for that.
I've been listening to various pop tunes today (Bob Moses, Billie Eilish, Lana Del Ray) and digging Stellia's bass bump. Clarity and details are outstanding, and this chain produces an easy, non-fatiguing listen.
Anyway, context is everything. I haven't tried these both head to head directly out of the player in a portable sense, but both are very enjoyable listens. I might pick VC for a road trip with pleasure listening, because it's nice to be able to do justice to ZMF cans straight from a DAP.