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[goatherder]

Being a laptop weight weenie is great and all, but not if e.g. I have to drag around a brick-like pro soundcard to get good sound. Some of my notebooks have decent onboard sound - one that I can actually plug decent headphones into - while others, e.g. all my Apples but not limited to them, have pretty cruddy onboards. I'd like to consistently improve the playback of any of my notebooks to top-notch levels but without any serious demerits in terms of portability.

- Line out for powered speaker use, pre function might be nice but not a prerequisite
- Headphone out, powers most efficient, low-to-mid-impedance phones (including multi-driver balanced armatures) well. No need for this to be able to blow a pair of HD650's for example.
- bus powered, not a heavy juice drinker
- 24/96 playback
- Windows & OS X - but most importantly of course, works flawlessly with MC17.

No particular budget in mind right now.

In terms of weight / size limits, ideally in a USB stick, or very near, form factor - as long as the quality is high, don't care whether it has premium aesthetics or other BS-masks for inferior audio gear, though I'd check out devices specifically designed to be light (i.e. carbon bodies, etc). I don't need a built-in battery or an input, as I'd never use a portable headphone amp.

Suggestions please.

[pcstockton]

M-Audio Transit?  Smaller than a pack of smokes and feather light.

[goatherder]

That's a pretty ancient unit, and probably outstripped by cheaper interfaces these days. I was thinking more about something up there in terms of SQ.

[pcstockton]

It is up there for SQ. I used it for a while before I found the Juli@.  Sounded great but i wanted to be able to play the few 24/192s i had.

It satisfies all of your requirements.  Who cares how old it is?

It is a small, light, USB powered, ASIO compliant USB converter from a respected pro-audio mfr.  It does in/out so you can use to record if you had that need.

But whatever....  Let me know what you find.

[goatherder]

I guess you have a point. I should give it a try.

[Mediahome]

 Take a look at the FiiO DAC's at http://www.fiio.com.cn/  I picked up a D3 for about $25.  Pretty good SQ for the $$.  They have a variety of DAC's with or without headphone amps.  One of them should meet your needs.

Mediahome

[mojave]

If you do get the M-Audio Transit and are using Windows 7 you need to get the beta drivers from the M-Audio forums. This requires you to register to the forums. The problem that can happen without the latest beta is that ASIO output from JRiver loses the Transit's ability to get audio from the other programs even after JRiver has closed. You have to reboot the computer or restart the driver in order to get audio from the internet and other programs.

[goatherder]

Just as well I had misgivings about it then.

Fiio - nothing's small enough to make me go 'aha', really. Good bang for the buck for sure but not quite where I'm aiming. The E10 is an option, but ideally I'm looking for something more portable.