where in OZ are you mate?? I have a few you can try out, including the ibasso D10 which IMO represents the best value in portable amp/dacs in the current market and is gaining a rep for being just that at a blinding rate. you just have to check out the appreciation thread which is huge considering its only been out for less than 2 months.
it has USB, optical and coax for digital inputs and an analogue linein/out on minijack, can also be used as dac only if you have a home amp that you need a DAC for. IMO the D10 via optical sounds better than the predator or head-amp pico, which uses the same dac chip, but only has usb input, which is IMO inferior to both optical and coax. goes for $270USD though, so a touch over your budget, but I dont think you will be disappointed. in fact I know you wont. I have heard all the big name amp/dacs (havent heard the 3move though) and this baby runs with the best of them and its flexibility as far as inputs goes, makes it a no-brainer to me. It also has socketed op-amps, which means you can tailor the sound to your liking by installing a different one. They actually supply several different ones with the package, but you can get them all over the place for less than $10USD all you have to do is get some browndog adapters and solder them on, or you can buy them pre-soldered from a few places.
I use it mainly portable with my iriver H120 which has optical out, but sounds brilliant from my Mac G5 too. I also use it as dac only in my transportable rig with a LISA III portable amp and this combo is to die for. that amp (Lisa III) is well out of you budget though. but really not necessary for you starting out anyway as the D10- sounds great by itself
the 3MOVE will win in terms of output power for the amp section if you are using particularly hard to drive headphones, but in every other area its D10 FTW IMO.
I have owned and still own some of the best portable kit around; have taken the ipod based rig to its natural conclusion with a modified ipod video (DIYMOD), portable teflon VCAP dock with cryo cables and driving a LISA III. not only does the D10 with iriver compete with this rig, in some ways it is better (not the Lisa's fault but the DAC in the ipod), for less than half the price. the VCAP with DIYMOD has a more musical SQ and the soundstage is slightly more expansive/magical. the amp section in the D10 is really nice, doesnt compete with the LISA III, but that is no surprise given the price difference.
there are pluses and negatives on both sides, but if you have about that much money to spend on a portable DAC/AMP and like the idea of optical, then al I can say is you will be getting some good value and will have shortened your trip to audio nirvana.
[size=medium]oh and Welcome to Head-fi; sorry about your wallet!!
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