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Author Topic: Turbo-charged iPod Classic  (Read 10038 times)

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Offline gormenghast

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Re: Turbo-charged iPod Classic
« Reply #15 on: September 15, 2016, 10:50:19 AM »
Yeah, no soldering.  But, really, watch several videos about the iPod you are opening.  Especially, when disconnecting the battery ribbon and other precautions   Read about the tested memory cards and the order in which they are installed.

Personally, I wouldn't want to open someone else's iPod. 
A lot of people run a race to see who is the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.

Offline tedyun

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Re: Turbo-charged iPod Classic
« Reply #16 on: September 15, 2016, 12:38:25 PM »
The Wolfson DACs are audiophile quality and were found in high-end CD players during that time. If I remember correctly, the 4th and 5th gen iPods featured these, but then Apple went with TI for the later generation.

The problem was that all the components downstream of the DAC are low quality, so they weren't showcasing the benefit of having a high end DAC. One company called Red Wine Audio figured out how to mod the DAC and directly connect the signal to the line-out pins. They called this the iMod. You could send your iPod in for the mod, or you could buy modded iPods from them.

The iMod required a special 30-pin > 3.5 mm connector to plug into a headphone amp. So basically, to realize the high end sound of the DAC, you had to 1. Pay for the mod, 2. Buy the special connector, 3. Buy a headphone amp, and 4. (optional) Buy good quality headphones. So you were out a bit of money for this. But hey, that's nothing new for the audiophile world!

I have this setup, and I am still running it today. The headphone jack is unmodified, so it takes the signal from the DAC, feeds it to the low quality iPod amplifier, and I can do a comp by switching my headphones from the iPod jack to my headphone amp. The difference is clear and obvious, even to my ears which I don't consider audiophile. The soundstage difference is immediate. I also did a comp with an unmodded iPod, feeding into the same headphone amp, and I could still tell the difference.

You can read more about it on Head-fi.org, but I'm not sure if people are still doing it today. I don't think RWA is still selling the iMod or the mod service. Instead, newer audiophile grade music players are coming onto the scene.

Edit: Actually, poking around the iflash site that todd originally posted for the SDHC adapter, I found an article describing a user doing the iMod. This is possible if you're good at soldering. There are detailed instructions on head-fi.

https://www.iflash.xyz/modding-audiophile-meets-ipod-diymod/




417gb  :o  I read the 5.5g iPods had Wolfson DACs.  Does this mean anything? 
« Last Edit: September 15, 2016, 01:04:18 PM by tedyun »
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Offline gormenghast

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Re: Turbo-charged iPod Classic
« Reply #17 on: September 15, 2016, 02:36:28 PM »
Thanks for the info above re: the Wolfson DAC.

Todd E.  When you Rockbox'd your iPod were you on a Windows computer or a Mac?  I've read about how to convert the iPod to FAT32 but we mostly use Macs in this house.  There is an ancient Dell here I might look into using.  Going into Terminal looks daunting--edit:  in the mean time I figured it out.  Brought back to life an old Dell laptop that needed much updates. 

Very cool stuff I didn't know existed.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2016, 06:13:37 PM by gormenghast »
A lot of people run a race to see who is the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.

Offline todd e

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Re: Turbo-charged iPod Classic
« Reply #18 on: September 15, 2016, 10:30:16 PM »
Win7 Pro, was able to load the installer, and it worked for a few days...  but then it proved that it was unstable, as ROCKBOX suggests for a 7th gen.  An ancient Dell should work fine for a reformat, but I didnt have issue as install was all PC based, in origin.  i got a 'bad sector' error msg a few times, decided it wasnt something i was willing to try anymore until maybe a newer build is more compatible with a 7th gen and uninstalled the dual boot option. 

ive been thinking about doing it for friends, now.  opened 3 now, and know my way around mostly with these parts.  had no idea there would be such interest from my friends, but id stress only bother with any of this if your ipod is dead.  working ipod prob better to leave it as-is.

Offline StarkRavingCalm

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Re: Turbo-charged iPod Classic
« Reply #19 on: March 13, 2017, 11:23:30 AM »
I have a 2015 Mazda 3 which is iPod compatible. But the vast majority of the time, the device is shown as "Apple Device" and does not resume last song played.
It starts at the first artist alphabetically. It is a 5th gen iPod Video.
Maybe one out of every 50 starts it will show up as "Apple iPod" and resume from last song played.
However, if I use an iPhone 4S, it resumes each time.

I have thought about performing this mod, thinking the issue is because the iPod 5 uses a HDD and not flash memory.


Anyone have a similar situation that this mod corrected?

Offline gormenghast

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Re: Turbo-charged iPod Classic
« Reply #20 on: March 13, 2017, 02:32:03 PM »
I drive a 2014 GMC 1 ton truck.  I used the above iPod in it for a short while before I finally sold the iPod.  I never had a problem with the iPod starting where it stopped.  Could be a GM thing though compared to your Mazda.  I see the GM logo on the iPod when I start the truck.  My second gen itouch works the same as the iPod.   
A lot of people run a race to see who is the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.

 

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