For the past few years, I’ve worked on various electronic amplifier projects – including the MINT headphone amplifier. For those that don’t know, a MINT headphone amplifier uses two 9V batteries, a small circuit board and some connectors to add power to your standard iPod (etc…) player when used with quality high-end headphones. The end result is a powerful sound from your puny player without overdriving the stock headphone output.

They are called MINTs because they are often stuffed into a small Altoids tin for easy portability. Well, now a company has managed to slam an iPod into a designer tin of the same size.

It’s called the TinPod. Seems like a pretty fancy way to do the same thing that can be done yourself with some careful tin snipping on a standard Altoids tin. Pretty slick though.