The American Swan Song Audio presents the new Mini Black headphone amplifier and DAC. Ready in one fell swoop.
The textual sometimes somewhat messy website of Swan Song suggests otherwise, but this is an American company where design and manufacture take place in the equally American Tulsa (Oklahoma). It also explains the $1600 price tag of the new Mini Black headphone amplifier, indicating that we are not dealing with a budget gadget here. It is not only a headphone amplifier, but also a DAC. In other words: you plug the device into a free USB port on your laptop, for example, and you can listen.
Rechargeable
The Swan Song Audio Mini Black is equipped with rechargeable batteries, which means that you can also use the device on the go. When fully charged, the batteries deliver 7.5 hours of playing time, according to the manufacturer.
Another special feature, according to the manufacturer, is that separate batteries are used to power the analog and digital parts of the internal circuitry. A class A power amplifier delivers 1.75 watts of power into 8 ohms. Where it applies that headphones with impedance up to and including 600 Ohms are supported. Digital-analog conversion is handled by a Burr Brown-DAC chip. A datasheet with specs and some measurement data can be found here.