Have you guys seen it? They have it at the audio shop near the theathers at the Powerplant

Its a beautiful piece of work. Tube Amp for an Ipod.

Pretty pricey at 38k, though.

If you only sample your ipod songs at 128kbps, will having a very nice amp make a difference? I think that you first have to make sure your music source is of best quality....

I couldnt agree with you more.

My next question would be.... How do I improve the quality of the music stored in my ipod?

rip with high bitrates or better encoding methods like apple lossless. there is also a script for itunes which lets you use lame to encode your mp3s. i use 192kbps with vbr. not the best i know bit its a good compromise for getting decent storage space.

well if we got money to burn then why not? Quality comes with a price isn't it.

The Fatman iTube (http://www.bluebirdmusic.com/Fatman_Intro.htm)

Just bought the Fatman iTube Valvedock with Speakers Carbon edition. My 32gig iPod Touch does not work on the iTube dock. iTube does not charge the iPod touch and it does not play the music thru the speakers. I need to use a cable plugged into the iPod's headphone hole. Is this normal or is something wrong with the iTube or iPod? Are there adaptors available to make the iPod work on the iTube?

Thanks in advance for your help.

We at the A Shop are selling the Fatman locally... We have tried it with the new iPods and we think that it wasn't made for the newer iPods. Even the new nanos won't charge but they would still play. My iPhone 2g charges and sometimes plays... I've tried our iPod video 5.5 and my 2nd gen iPod nano and they both work fully. So far, the iPod touches we tried don't charge but they do play. I think it's a hit and miss thing since the Fatman was made for the older iPods. I also agree with kikoreta that if you wanna utilize the tubes on the Fatman then you should encode at a very high bitrate or go native wave file!

We at the A Shop are selling the Fatman locally... We have tried it with the new iPods and we think that it wasn't made for the newer iPods. Even the new nanos won't charge but they would still play. My iPhone 2g charges and sometimes plays... I've tried our iPod video 5.5 and my 2nd gen iPod nano and they both work fully. So far, the iPod touches we tried don't charge but they do play. I think it's a hit and miss thing since the Fatman was made for the older iPods. I also agree with kikoreta that if you wanna utilize the tubes on the Fatman then you should encode at a very high bitrate or go native wave file!
sir, where is A Shop located?

They had this on sale at Listening Room in Shangri La Plaza a few weeks ago. They were selling it for P20k. I auditioned it not with an iPod but with a CD player. Of course, you also have to pair it with a good sounding speaker. It was hooked up on a bookshelf Dynaudio and it sounded good. Not sure though if it would sound the same if you use a not too high-end speaker system. :)

For less than the P38k price of a Fatman, you can get a decent speaker/stereo amp/generic ipod dock.

Like this:

Generic Ipod dock - 600-1k (from the folks at tipidpc.com)
Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 - 6k
NAD 315 BEE stereo amp - 15k
Generic speaker cables and RCA connectors - 500 bucks

Let me just suggest something guys.

First of all the "Fatman" sounds great if done right.

Let me tell you how you can get better than Fatman sound for about half the price.

First.. the hardware.

Instead of a FATMAN, get yourself a Dared MP5. Google it. It's the OEM version of the FATMAN.

Then get yourself a pair of nice bookshelf speakers with high db rating (90 and above). Suggestion : PARADIGM Atom

Next, get yourself some nice thick speaker wires and banana plugs. Kahit make your own nalang.

Overall gagastos ka neto:
Dared MP5 - 9k
Paradigm - 11~12k
Wires - 1k
Banana plugs - 600

roughly half the price :) but sounds a lot better :)

I'd rather get a full-sized tube amp and pay only half......and spend the rest on a quality bookshelf.....

Garbage in garbage out audio quality-wise. iPods are not top end front ends. To its credit the Fatman is pretty. That's enough reason to get it. Problem is some units circulating are old and may not be 100% compatible with modern iPods.