Man the mini-me this weekend and I used 2 different types of batteries. Both where pro-dat but one was a 12 volt and one was an 8 volt. 12 volt ran fine, 8 volt also ran fine, only ran it for 2 hours, but it had enought jouce left in the 8 volt to run my da-p1 for another 4 hours. The thing did not go up in smoke and I used a pro-dat cable that eco-charge is now trying to blame on the burn out. Either way it ran fine, I really like it and the converter in it is fantastic. Since I have a V2 I find no reason to use the pre in the mini. The V2 and mini-me combo is killer and using the calpots for line in is not that bad at all, used 25 db of gain from the V2 and was able to get very good levels with minimial adjustments on the mini-me.