For those on this thread that have asked about using the tablet to control a media center, a Roku Soundbridge can be controlled a couple different ways with the tablet.

Media Streamer can be used to control the music queue of the Soundbridge. The downside of this application is that if you stop it, the Soundbridge stops playing. This is a limitation of the Media Streamer application, not the Soundbridge (see Cidero).

Because of this limitation, I wrote my own application soon to be renamed TabletBridge. With this I can control and view the Soundbridge screen from the tablet via WiFi. The downside of this application is it's ugly and not very fault tolerant regarding the network connection although I improved that last night. http://www.kjainvestments.com/sb/

Frank

After a quick peek at the data sheet for the TI chip mentioned earlier in the thread it looks like the pins 51 and 52 (voutr and voutl) on the chip are the line level outputs, a few minutes with a soldering iron should easily move the connection for the 1/8" jack from one to the other and avoid the simple onboard amp outputs 55 and 56 (hpr and hpl).

Sorry if this is redundant to something else in the thread, I was getting a bit tired of the speculation as to how the chip worked and it's ins and outs without anybody actually just taking a peak at it's block diagram.

I wonder if there's a way to switch to line level output in software, I'd certainly prefer that to voiding my warranty.

Are those pins currently connected to anything?

My personal experience is that the buitl-in speakers are not very good at all -- they would be fine for video conferencing, but suck for audio. What I was surprised by though is the headphone response -- bass is extremely limited (and I know these haedphones well, they reproduce bass fine) I would be vey surprised if these have anything approaching a "flat to 20Hz" response. Otherwise, quite listenable, just anemic in bass.

YMMV, all my subjective opinion. I have the equipment to measure the response, but doubt I will bother - would love an EQ though...

There really should be a proper EQ!

For now, you could try xmms at least for audio, it has a software EQ.

The block diagram doesn't show any switching circuitry between the line-level and the amplified pins, so if there were a way to do it in software it'd have to be specific to the n810 hardware external to the chip itself. As to current connectivity on those pins, I couldn't say as I'm waiting for my dev discount to be activated...

There's a lot of not-too-good advice in this thread, mixed with good, in my opinion, relative to the quality of what comes out of the 810. The original poster needs to understand that he needs a system that fits HIS needs and HIS ears, not the theoretical prejudices of audiophiles and engineers. Lots of people find iPods satisfactory, which is why so many own them. Lots of audiophile types make iPods work for them under some circumstances, by various dodges. If, however, you run iTunes music through them, encoded at a very low rate, the result ain't too good. That is, garbage in, garbage out.

That said, my 810 doesn't sound horrible run into my good headphones, which cost twice what the 810 did (and aren't high-impedence, nor do they demand a lot of power), with good source files. Things could be better, but they could be a whole lot worse. I don't think the data specs of the thing are sub-CD quality--16/44.1--and probably the amp is about what you get in any mp3 player these days; that is, not audiophile, but adequate.

The real place to be finding out this stuff, if you want to know practical stuff about amps and headphones (rather than the specs of the 810) is at http://head-fi.org org
If you prefer to hang out at the other end, with the guys who think everything is inadequate garbage, check out http://www.head-case.org/
Your choice. :-)

Any idea why the N810 isn't sending sound out via the headphone jack? I've just tried Vagalume (last.fm client) so far and it only plays from the speakers. WTF?

I'm probably going to sound like an idiot for some reason, but I shouldn't have to do anything to get sound from the headphone jack--or, even worse, I shouldn't have to listen through the speakers if it doesn't do headphone-out in some cases.

Edit: Okay, I could've checked easily before posting, but it seems like this is just something that Vagalume does. Why? No damned clue, but I'll take it to a Vagalume thread.

But on topic, my Grado SR-80's sounded great(o) powered by the N810--even for that crap that Nokia included on the tablet. This is a first-impression and nothing more, but I won't use the N810 for "serious" listening anyway and when I'm on the go surrounding noises will preclude really careful listening.

IMHO, one of the biggest problem with consumer audio equipment is that the power supply cannot supply the peak power requirements of music when driving headphones at high levels, and as for transients there's insufficient energy storage in the power supply, and battery operated devices have insufficient voltage overhead to drive peaks cleanly.

Most cheap headphones are relatively insensitive, and can be quite high impedance, so need the volume cranked up to be useful making the problems worse. A good pair of sensitive headphones allows the volume to be kept down and thus give the audio amplifier and its power supply the best chance to provide a clean signal.

However, I've not done any analogue electronics for a while, and now it's all class D/PWM switching amps, I might be completely wrong

Has anyone managed to connect a bithead or total bithead, yet?
(also posted on sister thread on N800 forum)
Speculation on the N800 forum is that it should be plug and play.
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...bithead&page=4