Portable DAC compatible w/ iPhone or iPod

Thanks - JI35: I know about the Pono player, I'm thinking of that other company that makes clever little "Toblerone candy" shaped mini DAC's similar to the Pono. I'll have to research it some more. The company name was an acronym for something...dang... it eludes me right now.

My goal is to be able to loan my little device to the spin instructor and let them plug their phone into it just to see if the power chords and the climactic moments don't have more drama to them. And the thin-ness and the harshness, hopefully some of that can go away.

Timrhu: I did not know about the Nuforce Icon ido. It appears to be out of production. I did find several on eBay for under $100 which is encouraging. One question though: does it use the mini jack from the iPod to import the raw data or does it keep the crappy internal dac from the iPod in the playback? I have a really nice sounding Wadia 171i with a digital coax out to my Bryston DAC that sounds quite nice for most recordings except all but the lowest quality mp3's. But that set up is for my home system and is not portable at all. The Nuforce sounds promising because it appears to just require a place to plug in a wall wart and a place to plug in the RCA interconnects and that is about it.

Well, I just bought a clean used one off of eBay. Feeling like taking a risk and trying it out.

I really hope it works to make the spinning class playlists a little funkier.

When I get it I think I'll test it out straight into my Bryston preamp and also into my byrston dac. I plan to do a comparison with the Wadia 171i as well.

For the iPhone 6 I guess I'll have to use the converter dongle that connects the old style 30 pin connector to the current Lightening connector.

Elevick - I appreciate your expertise as a spin instructor. I'm thinking that having an actual small high quality DAC in the spin class that the instructor can plug his phone into is going to produce noticeably superior sound even with low quality MP3 music tracks. I'm sorry that you "gave up" on trying to get decent sound. What source were you using? Did you just connect up to the mini-jack? Did you try it with a DAC?
What I hear in these spin classes is classic low quality iPod through mini jack crappy. I believe this is very fixable!
I spoke with my favorite instructor about it this morning & she is willing to try the Nuforce when I get it. I let her know I'll need a place to plug up the wall wart & I need some exposed RCA interconnects. Both of these requirements are potential issues since the back of the equipment rack is padlocked & only the manager is authorized to unlock it. Also, all the outlets appear to be in use so I would need to haul in my own multi outlet strip. I plan to ask the front desk if we can run a set of RCA interconnects through one of the unused auxiliary inputs (if there are any left) from the back & long enough to dangle out front

Thanks Mingles - HRT is the name of the company I'm thinking of. I'll check their website for current models and features.

The Nuforce Icon iDo seems to be the right product for what I'm needing it to do. The only thing better would be a battery powered version.