HeadRoom Portable Micro Amp (with DAC)

What if you could take your listening room with you? We’ve been asking, and answering, this question for over fifteen years now. Our latest response: the HeadRoom Portable Micro Headphone Amp. This little gem is a very deliberate blend of audiophile quality parts, a road-worthy extruded aluminum & black urethane enclosure, a serious lithium battery/recharging circuit, plus a well-conceived set of travel accessories, all tightly focused on getting you great access to your tunes whether they live on an iPod, laptop, or any other type of portable audio player.

Your player and the Portable Micro Headphone Amp in its standard configuration together with a Micro Strap and Micro Bag creates an outstanding personal audio system that provides hours of high-end portable listening pleasure wherever you may roam. Add the optional internal Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) and the Portable Micro will accept optical and coaxial S/PDIF digital inputs, or USB input from your computer. You’ll be amazed at how good your laptop or PC computer can sound when the audio digital-to-analog conversion process is done properly, and outside the noisy electrical environment ever-present inside your hard-drive. Features The front panel of the Portable Micro Amp sports (left to right) line input and headphone output 1/8” (3.5mm) mini-jacks, HeadRoom Crossfeed switch and gain switches, volume control, and power switch. The rear panel has the power input jack, charge state indicator LED, and pre-amp output jack in it’s standard configuration; the DAC option adds the 3.5mm mini-optical/coaxial digital input jack and a USB mini-B connector. How it Works The Portable Micro Amp/DAC couldn’t be easier to use, simply plug in a source and headphones, and turn it on. The battery is a two-cell, 7.4VDC, 2200mAh Lithium-Ion rechargeable which runs for about 15 hours, and recharges in about two-to-three hours. The battery is specified to deliver greater than 70% of its rated capacity for greater than 300 charge cycles, and is warranteed for one year. The unit must be returned to HeadRoom for eventual battery replacement. The Portable Micro Amp is meant for mobile listening use so the provided power connection is purely a recharging unit, NOT an AC-power supply! Do NOT leave the Portable Micro unit plugged-in to AC-power past the time required to fully charge the lithium batteries (about 3hrs) and always operate the amp only while "unplugged" for best life and performance. Build The HeadRoom Micro Amp casing is a custom-manufactured heavy aluminum extrusion and all markings are laser-etched into the jet black anodized finish --- in other words, you could run over this baby with a car and it wouldn’t even chip the paint [umm, not recommended! -ed.]. The urethane bezel (that rubber thing around the front & rear panels) provides significant protection for the enclosure and non-skid security on your desktop. It has a foot sweep that fits into the groove in the top of the bezel allowing all HeadRoom Micro products to stack conveniently and securely. All HeadRoom Portable Micro Amps are hand-built in Montana, USA. Accessories An external AC power-supply/charger "wall-wart" is included with the Micro Portable Amp/DAC. *The Portable Micro Amp does NOT include any interconnect cabling. If you are purchasing a Portable Micro Amp with the DAC option and want to use it with your computer, you will need a USB cable. If using the coax/optical input, you will need an Optical Digital Cable along with a Toslink to Mini Adaptor. To hook up your Micro Portable Amp to analog-output sources, you will need a mini-plug 1/8-to-1/8 (3.5mm) interconnect cable. We highly recommend the Cardas 12-inch mini-to-mini interconnect cable ($17). For additional cables and lengths, browse all of our cables. Check out our Portable Micro System for added savings!