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Well put from both of you. It comes down to how you want to use it and with what IMO. I love being able to power my LCD-2 while moving around the house with the Stepdance. I just received the Pico Slim that has a distinct size advantage and longer battery life. Based on my initial listening with IEMs, the sound quality gap between the two isn't all that large; it is more about sound signature differences. But I will know more over time.
HPA, I think you have both and probably have already compared the two, any comments?
As far as listening time, 10 hours is plenty for me, and I think with a 600 mAh battery it might be closer to 12 hours. However, if you easily double your battery life by bringing a spare battery and can extend it even further with ease. For travel purposes, the
iPower charger I have is tiny and travels well.
And while I only own one of the HiTech 600 mAh batteries, I would recommend
this kit for the Stepdance.
Most of my experience with the Stepdance was with two prototypes in March of this year that I auditioned for Jan. I emailed him impressions about what I thought, and which version was better with which phones. One model was just a little better than the other, and other listener's agreed with my impressions so that's the design that Jan ran with. I have not bought a Stepdance yet, but I'm going to once I have some bills paid off.
So I compared the two prototypes to my RSA Protector, opamp rolled D4 and D10, 3MOVE, XM5, DACport and others, but the Pico Slim didn't arrive for another couple of months if I recall. So, I never compared the Slim to the particular Stepdance that Jan put into production. I do believe that the Slim's sound is on a similar level to the Stepdance that did not go into production, which is slightly more laid back than the production Stepdance. The production Stepdance is slightly more energetic without becoming too aggressive. Both prototypes were good, but I just preferred the signature of one with most phones better.
In comparison, the Pico Slim sounds good with an HD800 in terms of sound signature. But it can't go past moderate volume levels because it's underpowered with them, and so bass impact suffers. The balanced Protector can drive the HD800 to loud levels like the single ended Stepdance, but the Protector sounds brighter and more fatiguing than the Stepdance with the HD800. The balanced Protector sounds better with HD600 and HE-5 than it does with HD800, but I thought the Stepdance drove those phones just as well, and without needing special cables and adapters. Single ended I feel the Protector is lacking in power for the HD600/800, but it's not bad. On the other hand the HE-5 sounded terrible in single ended mode from the Protector (thin and bright), while the Stepdance drove them better single ended than my other portable amps. This was with a 12 and 15v 4.5A regulated power supply for laptops (15v okay for proto, not sure about production).
My LA7000 and HF-2 are single ended phones that I thought they worked better with the Stepdance than either my single ended Protector or Pico Slim (or D4/10). With those two phones as well as with the HD600 the 3MOVE was actually not too far behind. However, all of these amps are in the top tier of portable amps, and the improvements going from one to another are not huge (except in the differences in power). It seems the Stepdance, Protector (balanced not single ended) and 3MOVE have a good bit of power, the XM5 and D4 were close but not up to the same levels, while the D10 was just a little above the Slim which had the least power. The Pico Slim is geared towards the low impedance IEM market, and the Stepdance is geared toward the high impedance or full size headphone market - Apples and Oranges. Everyone should have one of each.
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My feeling is as a product, the Stepdance tries to capture both portability and small desktop markets. Portability means small, light and long battery life for IEMs. Desktop means HP and IEMs with less concern for size, weight and battery life since one will use a power supply. Ofcourse it has to sound excellent in both applications. Having said that, as a small desktop, its excellent. But as a portable I don't know.
I still haven't found an "all-in-one" portable amp that does all categories better than all the other competition. I would say the iBasso D4 is more flexible and versatile, apart from it's poor battery life. But choosing one amp always seems to be a compromise. The D4 is not as large as the Stepdance/3MOVE, but it's still not as portable as the Slim. It's got more power in 9v mode than Slim, but still can't match the power of the Stepdance. With upgraded opamps it sounds like a P-51 clone and is only a little behind the Stepdance in sound, so one could give up that little bit of sound quality in return for a DAC and better portability. But, the D4 is still a little underpowered with HD600/800/HE-5 and that's where the Stepdance comes in. My Macbook > Pico Slim > Stepdance is a bit better with HD600/800/HE-5 than the Macbook > D4.
In the long run I'd rather have the Pico DAC + Slim + Stepdance, and then I could live without all the other portable amps and just alternate between the two as needed, depending on what I was listening with and where. In my case I keep all the amps that I have for doing reviews and comparisons; but in the real world I'd just have the minimal pieces of gear with one DAC and two different amps to cover all my IEM and phones. average_joe has the right idea by having both amps. (I picked the Pico DAC because it works well with iPad and Macbook, and being separate means it doesn't add weight and size to my Pico Slim when I just want to amp an iPod - plus I hook up two amps to the DAC via RCA and 3.5mm at the same time).
