My new RSA Tomahawk portable setup - pics inside...
So,
I put together my first portable headphone amp kit, with a small Samsonite olive drab magnetic flap cell phone case (carbiner clip and belt clip). Case was under $10 at Walmart. I can shake the case and the Tomahawk wont push the magnetic flap open or fall out.
The iPod case clips to the side of the Samsonite phone case. I think the ipod case is a griffin 3-way leather case with magnetic flap/and button snap. This case was under $20 (either radioshack or compusa, I forget). I also have a clear acrylic case that clips to the Samsonite well, but the ipod could slide out of that case with a hard jolt (i.e. short drop and sudden stop).
The interconnect cable runs along the back of the cases, almost between them, using a zip tie to hold the rolled up cable out of the way. Then my E4c pass out of the Samsonite case and head up to my ears.
It's pretty compact, and easy to access the iPod or Tomahawk controls without dropping anything on the ground. I just clip the carabiner to a belt loop, or a safari bag over my shoulder.
I can't stand the volume louder than having both the iPod and RSA turned up to 75% each, and I don't know how many hours are on the amp's batteries. This is with either my 8gb 2nd gen or 2gb 1st gen iPod with sound check off/eq flat. I haven't tried my 5.5 gen 80gb yet.
The sound is clearly better than iPod alone, and still clearly better than my old radioshack headphone amp, which I thought was an improvement over bare ipod until I got to try something better today.
I have a dock connector line out on the way, but it will require moving to my crystal ipod case, still being clipped to the amp case, since the leather flap covers both ends of the ipod right now.
