[russdog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meyvn Needs to be portable.

I don't know how pressed-for-time you feel about this. If I were you with as $200 budget, I'd wait just a bit and see what people say about Xin's SuperMini ($200) and SuperMicro ($170) amps. Can't get more portable than them. Xin has legions of followers, but recently has had everybody paralyzed while he tweaked and re-did everthing for his new series IV of products. The tweaking is done and they are now shipping en masse. Prelim reports say they are very nice indeed, with lots of power for driving whatever you have. It won't be long until we have many reports about what these things sound like. It's hard to grok exactly how small they are:

1. SuperMini-IV: 2.4"x1.9"x0.6", 2 oz (w/batt.), 2 AAA, internal charging, 5.5V boost, jumpers for 4 features, dual opamp sockets.
2. SuperMicro-IV: 2.0"x1.0"x0.7", 1 oz (w/batt.), 1 AAA, over-discharge protection, 5.5V boost.

There's a 33-page marathon thread on his site about the trials and tribulations of him getting them sorted out. It's mostly about the people waiting on him. You don't need to read it all, the 1st page or two will tell you the important parts. I think there's a fair chance that these things might turn out to be special, but we just don't know yet... thus the idea of waiting to hear what people say about them.

Now that he's done tweaking, he says a 2-3 week gap between order and shipment is realistic. I don't know if that's true. One possible plan is to order now to get in the queue, and then cancel if the news from users is not to your liking. He doesn't hit the credit card until he ships them.