Here are some new information for Meier Audio Step Dance by Jan Meier:

The STEPDANCE is a portable amplifier with a minimum of sonic compromises towards weight and size. Its functionality is very basic. No crossfeed and no USB-DAC. Just an analog input and an analog output. There are also some gain-switches, accessible through the battery opening.

The amp is relatively big considering its low functionality and also current consumption is rather high. (25 or 50 mA depending on current consumption mode).

Yet this amp is something very special.

First of all it uses the concept of active balanced ground. This concept offers many of the advantages of pure balanced headphone connections but without the need of recabling your headphones.

Secondly, volume control is discrete. An AD-converter measures the position of the volume-potentiometer and controls a number of electronic switches that set the gain. This not only eliminates any channel imbalances but also results in a clearly more detailed and cleaner sound.

Thirdly, internally the 9V battery voltage can be doubled, resulting in a 18V power line, which offers superior driving capacity in comparison to internal Li-ion batteries. Also the power supply has a total of 6000 microF filtercapacity (Nichicon Audio-grade).

This amp is thus ment for those people who simply wants the best sound on the road and therefore gladly accept the disadvantages of a slightly larger size, a higher than average current consumption and the absence of an internal rechargeable battery.

Looks like something that will challenge the SR71a and the Lisa 3.

Source: Jan Meier