WOOT!

I'm interested!

No doubt there'll be matching a silver litz interconnect. Looks great - I'm game...
Steve - What price bracket are we looking at for the Zen-Pod?

Now, for some recommendations for great sounding portable head/earphones...

Jet-Lee wrote on 09/17/07 at 19:48:15:

Wow. It's great how we all have such different ideas of likes. Makes hifi very interesting and I guess that's why there are so many different products in the marketplace.

I hate that kind of "in the head music experience". It feels to me very claustrophobic and I feel like I've got a head-cold.

Any further thoughts as to the price point Steve?

Jet-Lee wrote on 09/18/07 at 16:53:02:

Are you serious in saying that people's different taste (likes) in hifi presentation is "unfortunate"? Are you therefore advocating a single way of presentation being the "right" one? Would be grateful if you can clarify what you mean.

I gotcha, Steve. Thanks!

Giorgino...What I meant was exactly as it's said. Unfortunately, the reason some poser businesses are in business is due to opinion and not fact.

The ZPOD is coming along fine.  I plan to put it in production after the fest.  Look for it sometime in late October/November.

Steve

Of all the sets of headphones tested with it, the Zen Pod refused to drive mine!  I asked Steve about this and he was unsure.  He tested them with 10ohm and 250ohm headphones, driving both just fine. However, my 32ohm headphones clipped the output.  He's looking into it.  However, I don't want to make it sound like a failure, or a bad product. On Steve's 250 ohm headphones, the difference between the ipod directly and the Zen Pod was astonishing!  The Ipod just didn't have the juice to drive em.  Volume all the way up was acceptable, but bearly. With the Zpod, however, there was plenty of volume.  The bass changed as well.  It took on an effortless quality, sounding more natural and smooth with more headroom.  Even on my friend's Sennheiser PX100s, the bass improved considerably.  We tried close to 10 sets of headphones of varying impedences.  The 32ohm Grado's were driven wonderfully.

As far as basic functionality, I suggested he change the headphone output to 1/4" for duribility reasons.  The volume knob and power switch were the only other functions and both were easily accessable.  The box was larger than the nano, but not huge.  I believe the same battery was in the unit for the whole fest and every time I walked up to it, it was on.  Steve estimated around 40hrs per battery, and it seemed very possible.  Changing the battery was simple enough.  The power switch was a little difficult to turn off, especially if you have large fingers.  It'd probably just take some getting used to.

Jason

That's the great thing about Decfest: people can test out new Decware kit and Steve can get initial feed back for further development before launch.

Indeed.

Here is the list so far re: headphones + ZPOD

Phones that it liked:

Grado RS1 / 32 ohm
AKG K27i / 35 ohm
SEN PX200 / 34 ohm
BOSE OE
SEN PMX100 / 34 ohm
MODA EAR BUDS / 15 ohm
BEYER DT770 / 250 ohm

Phones that it didn't like:

SEN HD485 / 32 ohm
AKG 701 / 60 ohm

Having had a few days to ponder it, I suspect these two phones are causing an oscillation.  

This is a rather high fidelity unit.  Had anyone listened to it on the tube output CD player vs the IPod,  I think they would have been amazed.   So the question becomes do we add more parts to improve compatibility at the possible risk of changing the way it sounds... or not?   I'll keep working on it.

I do like the idea of going to a 1/4 inch jack - for several reasons.  

Steve