I put a lot of use in my audio equipment. I listen to music all day at work and when I travel I like having quality sound for movies and music. Because I enjoy powerful bass, I invested in some Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Extended Bass in ear monitors (or IEMs) about two years ago. After an unfortunate run in with an airline seat catching the cable and pulling the wires out of the plastic and detaching I was able to fix it but had to use epoxy to keep the plastic together. Needless ...
I'm pretty new to the audio DIY stuff, but it can be a lot of fun. You'll find differing views on what benefit an LOD will do for sound quality. Basically instead of using the headphone out you're using the line out on the iPod (or other mp3 players have this also). I like the sound quality better with my headphone amp using an LOD and I have the satisfaction of building all of it (except the iPod of course). People spend hundreds of dollars on this stuff, it's cool building it yourself even ...