I pay for music cause I can't stand them.. Lol. Love the iPod idea. I have 158GB mp3s from over the years. Bu it sounds like absolute Shite compared to my tidal or Apple Music Lossless, with about 98% of all those tracks on Apple Music. I have some FLAC but like only 20% of it. Does this software allow you to download from Apple Music app? or Tidal App? That would be great for that. My music collections not so hot quality.
@@1TechCritic I have several thousand CD's that I have been slowly ripping to FLAC for the last year. I love the iPod idea for a lot of reasons. I'm curious if the sound quality on a sub $150 DAP (about what I would spend modding my ipod) would be better and would it have as much storage?
That's what I want to use mine for, but there's a lot wrong with it and I don't really know exactly what. Tried to pry it open but I have the model that has like 50 clips around the edge which makes it nearly impossible to take apart, at least without damaging or scratching the exterior...
@@K9V1 Take it to an Apple store and get it looked at. I took in a broken one and they sold me a new (rebuilt one) for a good price, although that was in 2017.
I have 3 of them, but only use one -- in my alarm clock with the old-school iPod dock. Which was such a neat idea, i miss things like that. But for personal carry, I converted my old phone into a DAP by removing and disabling everything but a single music app. Suddenly it had a surprising battery life left in it.
@@dragons_advocate Yeah, imma have to have a dongle dac in my case, but given I have both that and a phone sitting around it seems like it's easy to try out.
I did this with my old Galaxy S10E. Compact size, SD card slot and a headphone jack! Using a HiBy FC1 dongle for higher audio quality when I prefer it. I use Productivity Launcher for a minimal DAP-like experience and disable all other apps other than audio apps installed.
I love my Classic because it's a musical snapshot for me from when I got my 3rd gen in 2003 my junior year at college to 2017, the last year I had loaded anything new on it. I started really using it again last year after a couple year hiatus and it's still great even in stock form.
I love my iPods back then. Had a couple of "Classics" and a Nano. Those along with several early portable Fiio amps via the line out were golden for me then.
If apple were to release an updated iPod classic capable of downloading Apple Music playlists to it with a hifi DAC and usb C, that would revolutionize the market… again.
People who listen to music on MD, DCC, MP3, Spotify and RUclips have hearing loss because they are incapable of detecting the loss of captured sound from these terrible formats.
@@manieartis2687 The minidisc is low quality just like the iPod, Spotify and RUclips. CDs and WAV files sound so much better because they capture all the sound.
I attempted to install Rockbox in my resurrected iPod Classic (installed 500gb SSD and new battery), but it was unsuccessful. Kept getting an error message.
4.4mm balanced is way better than 3.5mm but is too large to ever justify using on a phone. It's better to move on from 3.5mm altogether and to use something like the M15/CMA18P to sidestep the issue
@@buckethead420 it would be too easy to snap while the phone is in your pocket. The same problem also exists for the 3.5mm and it's also unbalanced. 4.4mm is the best option as it's considerably stronger and balanced without being outrageously large like 6.5mm. Back when phones commonly had 3.5mm jacks it was a constant issue with jacks getting damaged accidentally
I have a collection of ipods and other old music players that i've modded myself. I started because i wanted something to listen to while writing but without any possibility for distractions. And then i decided that one was not enough and that I should definitely have a bunch all with different types of music on them. Last one i got (and probably one of my favorites) is my Zune Halo edition. Either that one or my second gen iPod. Big bricks of music.
Still run my 5.5 gen iPod with CF card conversion and custom housing. I keep 2 solid state converted models spare. They live in my cars lol. I also still keep my green iPod shuffle for bike riding.
I've been using a DAP of some form or other for around four years. Had I got an iPod classic back when they were still prevalent, it'd still be using it today. I see they have a lot of merits, like repairability and recycling and price, something that is somewhat of a grey topic with modern DAPs, not many guides as of yet on the repair side due to the niche area. Software wise, that all depends on what your library is mainly comprised of, rockbox is great if you can set it up right (personal experience hasn't been the best) to make it a stand alone device. The main draw backs I've seen is the dated connection port and I can see people would like having bluetooth connection ability. There has been a project called Moonlit which has a new case back that circumvents both problems that I'm hoping to personally test at some point. If that proves to be a good deal, a modded iPod will become my travel DAP, better to lose something that can be kit bashed together than a modern device worth a few hundred more.
I thought that too but decided to go slowly building my iPod again (lost all my library when my old HD apparently died). Just on my car rides the sound is SO MUCH BETTER, even using Spotify on high quality, is not the same… so well worth the trouble
@@MA-xd9zl IFKR! On the stereo its king!! But just rmbr to slowly import ur files tho. Apparently and this happened to me as well if u import a bunch of songs all at once the songs can get corrupt like fake titles, bad album art. Etc
I've got the iPod Mini. Use it daily. New battery, 256GB SSD, and Rockbox, it's the greatest MP3 player on the planet. I argue it's better than the other iPods only because it has a metal external case that, to me, feels amazing to the touch. Not some piece of cheap plastic. Also, the Mini is easy to take apart and work on.
I found an old ipod and been looking up what some people have done, from changing usb C, adding bluetooth, and now hearing this software. Exciting stuff
Whilst I didn’t own an iPod classic in its heyday, I have a fondness for them due to how simple and easy it is to use and modify. I own a 5th Gen that got Frankensteined with a 7th gen front and hard-drive whilst getting a new screen and battery, but I haven’t touched it since iPods blew up again (thanks to the dankpocalypse (no shade, I was happy they got the recognition they deserved)) but seeing this video makes me want to dabble in the missing stuff again. Like putting flash storage in, or shove a Taptic Engine in for a little umph in my music choosing experience. Loved the vid man! Thank you for showing off your cool iPod too 💪
I have a 120gb iPod classic 6. It’s been fully thrashed and abused. I bought it with the original box in 2020 for $65. It has chunks of the metal torn out of the faceplate and it’s full of dents and scratches . You can barely see the text on the back. Despite that the original 120gb hard drive still works perfectly. I’m gonna use it until the battery or hard drive dies then I’ll fix it up a bit. I love the feeling of the hard drive spinning up. It’s like a little clockwork music player. I love it. I have it hooked up to my hifi with an apple universal dock. Sounds fantastic
I got the FiiO KA13, their highest end USB dongle because I thought I needed that extra power. Later I didn't end up needing that much power and regretted my purchase an dwish I had the FiiO BTR 15 (wasn't a thing when I got the KA13) or a DAP. But since then I've been more and more satisfied with the KA13 and am happy with just that.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the iPod classic sixth gen because I still have mine with a laptop drive in it, and I’ve been thinking about either going towards the 5.5 general or just getting an SSD to install into this. Your video has helped sway my decision towards just getting an SSD for my current iPod. Even for what it is, with just the bare bones mid tier JBL headphones I have from 2016, it still sounds so wonderful. My favorite artists to listen to on it are the Beastie Boys, Bob Dylan, and The Aquabats! and mostly because the Beastie Boys have a song that is listed with sound testing in universities. I always tell people if you can’t hear both the bumpin bass and the high keyboard note at the same time in Beastie Boys “Brass Monkey”, then your setup needs help .
Oh man, iPods we're like a status symbol when I was in high school (back around 2004-2008). I had an iPod nano 2nd gen. After digging it out after so many years, I found the screen to be completely broken. However, my wife's iPod nano 4th gen still works like a charm and is almost in brand new condition, so I'm starting to use that. I hope this thing lasts me a life time lol.
iPods, umm have 2 of them. A 20G Gen3 B&W and a 60G Gen3 Colour. The 60G is still in the car glovebox and only recently stopped serving as CarPod duties, attached to a BMW OEM head unit, in an ‘03 Coupe. Since Roon ARC was released this has been my go-to source, running on a iPhone Mini 12, I have access to my entire local library in whatever format & version I have stored it in, plus all of Tidal, at either CD, MQA or now FLAC HiRes. Dongle is a Ztella Pro MQA and IEMs are MP145 for mobile listening, and the iPod integration in the car, gives upto 24/48. Local library is circa 9Tbytes of music, 110k albums but over 63% in 24-bit. Don’t see the need for the older tech here, unless you want to be nostalgic.
I love mine. I have had a 20GB iPod 4G for a while because of the darker WM8975 DAC. But once Dankpods started blowing up, I started a collection and got a 60GB 5.5G , ipod mini 2G and installed a 256GB compact flash card, and a 1GB nano 1G. I replace the batteries as needed, and just ordered a 256GB SD conversion for my 20GB iPod 4G. I rip CDs to iTunes using lossless ALAC and it sounds amazing, one of my favorite ways to listen.
I started with my ifi zen dac paired with philip fidelio x2HR and I remember I genuinely teared up when I booted up my first tidal song. The instant shock from the clarity and sound stage that I experienced was incredible having come from cheap wireless earphones. since then I've grabbed quite a few more bits. Fiio KA13, Letshuoer S12 Pro IEM's, Shanling M3 Ultra Dap, Audio-Technica ATH-M50xBT2DS (I love these) and my newest addition the Fiio BTA30 pro (for my 4k player). Unfortunately it's an expensive hobby as you don't want anything less than the best sound possible, I even paid to replace the windows driver to provide LDAC bluetooth. I wouldn't consider myself an audiophile, I don't dare get into the technical or tinkering of sound, I just want to appreciate music how it's intended to be heard.
Honestly, I'm super happy with using Tidal or just shoving a load of my own files on my phone and playing stuff over a BTR5 - feels like the most convenient option for my use case really. After digging out my old ipod touch a few weeks ago, I'm not sure I get why everyone is raving about using these old devices. If anything, the main enjoyment I've had out of digging out my old ipod has been listening to some old songs I had on there which I hadn't heard for the best part of a decade in some cases and definitely not on nicer gear. Between my desktop DAC and my little dongle playing high res files and the stuff on my ipod played out of that, I much prefer the former so that's what I'll be sticking with. My goal for the future is to build an offline library on a home server which I can either access online through something like Roon or by copying files across onto different devices. I suppose a dedicated music player could slot in somewhere in the future but it feels much easier just to spend a bit more on a phone with a tonne of storage for my music when I'm on the go.
Same here. As much as I’d love to be one of these people who can leave the house without having their phone and go running at the park with nothing but an iPod in their pocket, most of the music I love I’ve not physically bought yet and streaming it is the only way I can listen to what I want on the go. I have 20 ish albums on CD that I could put on an iPod but I’d easily wear those out and the cost of getting an older iPod + getting physical copies of every album I could ever want to listen to would cost a whole lot of money. Some would mention pirating and I’m not above that, but risking prison time or extreme fees just isn’t worth it. I’ll stick to streaming.
@@Luke-cp2jz Total opposite here. I have over 34000 songs downloaded to iTunes (the VAST majority of which I have purchased). I still use my iPod Classic everyday, but am thinking of getting a modded one with at least 500GB of memory to hold my whole iTunes collection. I don't really stream anything.
I've had my mother's old iPod for years now, never used it, finally started and was loving it till the hard drive gave out. Didn't back up my music but i made sure to redownload everything again onto some usb drives and i have a modded iPod coming back to me in a few days, i can't wait to get back on it
It’s not an iPod, but I use my Sony WM1Z all the time. It works great with my ADX -5000 headphones and my 64Audio N8 custom IEMs as well. I love having an all in one device that works anywhere
I love and still use my 160 GB iPod classic 7th generation mp3 player (as well as my 120 GB iPod classic) and I transferred hundreds of CD albums onto it (and bought the odd album or song on iTunes too several years ago). :)
I got a 7th gen and modded it to hold 2TB and a 3000mAh battery, as well as swapping out body and face colors. I still use stock iPod OS, and it works great for me. I'm not an audiophile, but I absolutely hate having to charge everything these days so I insist on having wired earbuds and headphones and there are too many ads with streaming.
Yo! I do a lot of travel and boy oh boy is having an iPod Classic in my pocket nice. It's something that's going to stay in my ears for 16 hours from when I get up, go to the airport, go through security, wait for a flight, get on the plane and fly, Deboard, get food, wait for flight, fly, land, grab pelican from baggage claim, get uber to hotel, checkin, and at last, open the door to my hotel room for the next week. No interruptions from texts, amazing noise isolation from my IEMs, no need for internet, phone battery lasts longer , tuned eq just how I like it for noisy environments, man. Why did the headphone jack have to die.
I never owned any of the iPod classics growing up and I love the one I put together. It’s a 5th Gen with custom front and back plates, 512GB storage. The only prebuilt and Modded iPod I would be a Bluetooth 7th Gen with USB-C, and 1 or 2TB of storage.
I know a lot of people are getting into iPod. I myself, along with a few others, are Zune users. Zune isn't actually half bad. I wish there were hardware mods like there are for the iPod, but I'm still glad to be listening to music on my Zune.
I've purchased a couple of Ipod Classics ever since they were first launched in the early 2000's but sold them all except for one, they were neat for the time but there was no proper 10 band EQ setting, just the terrible built in EQ presets, I still have fond memories of me enjoying so many songs on one tiny device which for the time was cutting edge in the early 2000's, but now is pretty standard.
Awesome video!! I have an IPod 5th generation and I installed many of my favorite songs and artists on it as well as some videos with copytrans. I’d love to check out more on rockbox or even try installing it to do more, cause man listening to my favorite songs without interruptions is the best feeling. Also I absolutely love Everything Everything!! Get to Heaven is the best album in my opinion
I used to own a couple of apple DAPs - the 2nd gen, Nano and Classic, then there was a Creative Zen. Really convenient to have your music collection stored and ready to go. Since Fii0 started releasing their players I just fell in love with portable audio all over again.
Since no one else has commented about it and DMS won't answer the people who asked: The green Spotify like theme he shows in the video is called "Themify".
I wonder if they have a theme that is just classic iPod coverflow. Because, not gonna lie, coverflow is legitimately my favorite way of browsing albums. I still miss that feature from my iPod days.
I concur. These times are so weird. People just seem nuts to me. I loved the iPod. I had the original, up until they discontinued the touch. I love the original. The battery is dead, but I still own it. I’m a painter, so it’s covered completely in oil paint. It’s a beauty…
I KNOW it's NOT small, but... For a while I used an LG phone (I bought 2nd hand cheaply) that has the Quad DAC. I then installed 'PowerAmp' - my favourite music player (it IS a powerful app for listening to music with), and then loaded all my music (100Gb) onto it, and it was a great setup (WAY better sounding than my Motorola phone!!) 😏👌 😎🇬🇧
I'm so glad that RockBox is still around. I thought this was going to be about iPods with stock OS, didn't expect it to be about RockBox. I remember buying a used iPod nano back in the day and being shocked at how hard Apple was working to stop them from being usable under Linux. They routinely and purposefully thwarted libraries that made it work. I got tired of that cat and mouse game and installed RockBox on it. It was awesome, freed my iPod in so many ways. After a few months the iPod died and part of me blames RockBox honestly but I still wouldn't have used it any other way. I also learned that I'm not compatible with Apple and to this day I've never felt the need to get another Apple product and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Really cool that you can dual boot to either the standard Apple OS or Rockbox. I see from previous comments below that Rockbox supports FLAC instead of only ALAC like the Apple system. Nice. And love that you can drag and drop files instead of having to go through iTunes which was always a pain. How hard is it to load Rockbox on an older iPod? Is there a link to how to do that you could provide? I'm pretty sure the DAC chip and implementation in an iPOD can't compare to a "real" DAP but for casual listening when out and about on IEMs or easy to drive headphones, they were always a nice, easy to carry device. Thanks. I might have to dig mine out of the drawer now.
Damn! I have just been using my iPod while BMXing and bowling due to how much lighter it is and less clunky than having a giant phone in my pocket. Saves phone battery too. I feel a little less of a boomer now, thanks for that!
Love this video! I've a 5.5Gen ipod Classic with the memory upgrade to take 4 micro sd cards. Sounds great with IEMs. Are there any other mods apart from battery? Think there were other upgrades which ended up with diodes hanging out of the iPod which I'm not interested in. Will have to research....
@@buckethead420 Yeah I see that now, last time I looked at this was many years ago, I think one of the earliest mods did have that. Doesn’t look like there’s any other options to upgrade the sound been developed in the intervening years though….
My question still remains for DMS. You recommend DCA E3 for portable headphones. What pocket friendly DAP can you drive for DCA E3 for best sound quality?
yooo I'm an iPod modder/refurbisher and I just wanna throw out there: there is BARELY a difference in the dac quality between the 5th and 6/7th generations. Ive found most people tend to agree with my opinion on it but: Cirrus (6/7): Great and tight instruments and detail Wolfson (Most iPods 5th and older): Nice warm and wide soundstage.
It makes me disproportionately happy to see iPod afterlife. I use the very tiny iPod shuffle at the gym. It has go me through so many boring cv workouts and is therefore a vital part of my life regime. The name is a bit of a misnomer because the shuffle function has never really worked I have to keep skipping its favourite songs, which can be a drag on the rowing machine when I don't have a free hand. I don't know if anyone has cracked a randomise function. My scan disk players have thhe same problem. I have 1000 songs stored and I can be sure that90% will not get played.
GREETINGS FROM THE BEAUTIFUL EMERALD COAST OF NORTHWEST FLORIDA! I still use my Zune sometimes...ANDROID 4 LIFE 😂 ! Seriously, the gear & equipment underscore the importance of our individual Audiophile HiFi experience that we ALL love.
Over the years, I have collected every single classic iPod for some reason or another. I don't know why I just love those modals. I may just use one of these mods to fancy up one of my classic iPods
I've got an iPod Touch 7G and I absolute love it! Why? The battery lasts a while and I can listen to music wherever and whenever I want, no internet connection or subscription needed! And no matter what people say, iTunes is an awesome app for organizing your music! I tried to replace it with my phone but Kies (Samsung) absolutely sucked (doesn't get updates anymore anyway) and I actually prefer having a device for music that's not my phone because I can still listen to music when my phone is low on battery (which happens much more often with my phone than it does with my iPod).
Interesting review. I have one with a more robust battery, but the unit itself was now way too light for me. Felt like a feather. So the tech guy added lead to give it a more satisfying weight.
im no audiophile but im attached to these and liked my experience modding a nano, but nano was stuck at 8gb so i replaced ol reliable with a classic with iflash. ipod from the same year as my car, feels good bros.
Many thanks, that was really good. I've got the last generation Classic and you have motivated me to use my IE600s on it as well. I love the design. I've got A&K SP3000 with HiRes music and a walk around SR35 but the Classic is a beautiful standalone.
Definitely dig it ! Sadly I lost it but my ipod touch 2 got the clearest and loudest sound I heard on a portable device next to the Sonys walkmans mp4s
I carry an iPhone and a Pixel, both with .5 TB storage so I always have my music with me, but seeing that iPod makes me feel like it would be cool to have one again
I bought a Cowon 10 years ago and never looked back. The iPod, built for convenience and portability, can’t compete with true hi-fi devices in sound quality due to its lack of high-end components like DACs and amplifiers. Many portable options today offer these features without the need for modifications.
My iriver H120 was flash with rockbox , man the memory , it's cool to see that because the hardware on the apple is pretty good , the OS was the biggest no go.
My allmost 20 year old ipod classic still sits in my desk. It hasn't worked in 10 years; something about a corrupted hard disk, and no one in India seems to be able to be helpful. But I still have hope it'll work.
I love the idea of them, I just don’t have the music collection to justify an iPod (or any dap really). I mostly just listen to music on my phone with iems and a dongle dac.
I wish you could provide more info on the mods. I’m trying to revive my old piece for 2 months now and I’m still completing the parts list so it’s a one time operation. What adapter/storage combo did you use? Do you have original battery or an upgraded capacity one?
I had a 160GB classic filled with over 90k in songs and complete albums , everything from cinematic scores to audio books and almost any album you could probably think of. Long story short someone stole it at the gym and when I tell you i haven’t slept right ever since i mean it
We love em because an aussie guy reminded us on how great these are
Person of culture, i see
UGH MY PKCELL
these dinguses do be really good
Damn that Aussie with his pet snake and his green iPad cover...Dragging us back to the stone ages 😅
5 bucks off from CASHIES
No fucking ads on an iPod.
I pay for music cause I can't stand them.. Lol. Love the iPod idea. I have 158GB mp3s from over the years. Bu it sounds like absolute Shite compared to my tidal or Apple Music Lossless, with about 98% of all those tracks on Apple Music. I have some FLAC but like only 20% of it. Does this software allow you to download from Apple Music app? or Tidal App? That would be great for that. My music collections not so hot quality.
No adds on my tidal either xx
@@1TechCritic I have several thousand CD's that I have been slowly ripping to FLAC for the last year. I love the iPod idea for a lot of reasons. I'm curious if the sound quality on a sub $150 DAP (about what I would spend modding my ipod) would be better and would it have as much storage?
@@trenthaynes3461 but also i've got some fun with ipod mods ;)
Great point
I still love my 160GB Classic. It is the jukebox in my old car.
That's what I want to use mine for, but there's a lot wrong with it and I don't really know exactly what. Tried to pry it open but I have the model that has like 50 clips around the edge which makes it nearly impossible to take apart, at least without damaging or scratching the exterior...
@@K9V1 Take it to an Apple store and get it looked at. I took in a broken one and they sold me a new (rebuilt one) for a good price, although that was in 2017.
I have 3 of them, but only use one -- in my alarm clock with the old-school iPod dock. Which was such a neat idea, i miss things like that.
But for personal carry, I converted my old phone into a DAP by removing and disabling everything but a single music app. Suddenly it had a surprising battery life left in it.
Shoutout to you for this, hadn't thought about using an old phone but it makes total sense.
@@anachronismic Apart from perhaps a better DAC, the insides are the same.
@@dragons_advocate Yeah, imma have to have a dongle dac in my case, but given I have both that and a phone sitting around it seems like it's easy to try out.
@@dragons_advocateas long as the dac has enough power to drive your headphones and no distortion it honestly makes no difference.
I did this with my old Galaxy S10E. Compact size, SD card slot and a headphone jack! Using a HiBy FC1 dongle for higher audio quality when I prefer it. I use Productivity Launcher for a minimal DAP-like experience and disable all other apps other than audio apps installed.
I love my Classic because it's a musical snapshot for me from when I got my 3rd gen in 2003 my junior year at college to 2017, the last year I had loaded anything new on it.
I started really using it again last year after a couple year hiatus and it's still great even in stock form.
yes
I love my iPods back then. Had a couple of "Classics" and a Nano. Those along with several early portable Fiio amps via the line out were golden for me then.
If apple were to release an updated iPod classic capable of downloading Apple Music playlists to it with a hifi DAC and usb C, that would revolutionize the market… again.
Maybe our niche, but they are too big for that. They are happy with AirPods and Apple Music being market leaders.
Is Apple music leader? Nops. Spotify yet @@stratelite1337
They did airpods max for audiophiles
Masses won't..audiophiles would..but it's a miniscule amount
@@vittoriovitale1008AirPod Max are inferior to anything else in that price range
Recently picked up an early 2000 Sony MiniDisc Player. I love it. It forces you to be discerning with what music you'll take out.
People who listen to music on MD, DCC, MP3, Spotify and RUclips have hearing loss because they are incapable of detecting the loss of captured sound from these terrible formats.
I love minidisc bro! It's awesome!
@@manieartis2687 The minidisc is low quality just like the iPod, Spotify and RUclips. CDs and WAV files sound so much better because they capture all the sound.
@@judenihalOr people just enjoy physical media or free access to music
@@NolanEgbertthe Compact Disc is the way to go then
Extremely delighted to see Everything Everything as the artist being played on the iPod
Ditto what a pleasant surprise!
Indeed. A man of culture
only reason I clicked on the video is bc i saw it in the thumbnail lol
me too lol @@SilhouetteLifter
can you please make video on how to install Rockbox OS.
Totally great idea, I give this a big thumbs up please DMS 👍
bro it's all out there on the rockbox official site
You download the rockbox utility, run it and follow the onscreen instructions.
Please
I attempted to install Rockbox in my resurrected iPod Classic (installed 500gb SSD and new battery), but it was unsuccessful. Kept getting an error message.
I think phone manufacturers should include the 3.5mm jack in their phone designs
4.4mm balanced is way better than 3.5mm but is too large to ever justify using on a phone. It's better to move on from 3.5mm altogether and to use something like the M15/CMA18P to sidestep the issue
@@MrJester831what about 2.5mm balanced?
@@buckethead420 it would be too easy to snap while the phone is in your pocket. The same problem also exists for the 3.5mm and it's also unbalanced. 4.4mm is the best option as it's considerably stronger and balanced without being outrageously large like 6.5mm. Back when phones commonly had 3.5mm jacks it was a constant issue with jacks getting damaged accidentally
I have a large plethora of bluetooth headphones and IEM adapters and I still insist on my phone having a 3.5mm jack just in case.
@@MrJester831oh, boy, this aged poorly. moondrop released a phone with both a 3.5 and a 4.4mm jack
Am I seriously about to dig out my old iPod classic from “that bin” and do this right now?
lol me too… same thoughts 😂
definitely worth it, give it a shot!
Did u? >.>
lol same
Rockbox? Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time. Glad to see they’re still going ❤
I remember the sansa clip+ days
I just installed Rockbox on my sansa fuse+ they're sill going
I didn't know this was a thing. Some advice on what guide and hardware to use for modding an iPod would have been helpful.
For a good time, look up Dankpods for some of the hardware mods and repair.
There’s plenty of videos around for this :D the community has been great bringing iPods back to life 😊
You apparently don’t know google is a thing either
I have a collection of ipods and other old music players that i've modded myself. I started because i wanted something to listen to while writing but without any possibility for distractions. And then i decided that one was not enough and that I should definitely have a bunch all with different types of music on them. Last one i got (and probably one of my favorites) is my Zune Halo edition. Either that one or my second gen iPod. Big bricks of music.
Still run my 5.5 gen iPod with CF card conversion and custom housing. I keep 2 solid state converted models spare. They live in my cars lol. I also still keep my green iPod shuffle for bike riding.
I've been using a DAP of some form or other for around four years. Had I got an iPod classic back when they were still prevalent, it'd still be using it today.
I see they have a lot of merits, like repairability and recycling and price, something that is somewhat of a grey topic with modern DAPs, not many guides as of yet on the repair side due to the niche area.
Software wise, that all depends on what your library is mainly comprised of, rockbox is great if you can set it up right (personal experience hasn't been the best) to make it a stand alone device.
The main draw backs I've seen is the dated connection port and I can see people would like having bluetooth connection ability. There has been a project called Moonlit which has a new case back that circumvents both problems that I'm hoping to personally test at some point. If that proves to be a good deal, a modded iPod will become my travel DAP, better to lose something that can be kit bashed together than a modern device worth a few hundred more.
The only thing that's stopping me from using an iPod again is getting my Spotify library to an iPod
spotify down website lets you copy your playlist link and download an mp3 of all the songs
spotifydownloader - thank me later
trust me my guy, with a little time, you'll get all of your library to your iPod. Im not about to give out sauces but uk, if u want some, drop ur @
I thought that too but decided to go slowly building my iPod again (lost all my library when my old HD apparently died). Just on my car rides the sound is SO MUCH BETTER, even using Spotify on high quality, is not the same… so well worth the trouble
@@MA-xd9zl IFKR! On the stereo its king!! But just rmbr to slowly import ur files tho. Apparently and this happened to me as well if u import a bunch of songs all at once the songs can get corrupt like fake titles, bad album art. Etc
"love" is in the title. That's how you know it isn't an Andrew video
Pffffhahahaha
I've got the iPod Mini. Use it daily. New battery, 256GB SSD, and Rockbox, it's the greatest MP3 player on the planet. I argue it's better than the other iPods only because it has a metal external case that, to me, feels amazing to the touch. Not some piece of cheap plastic. Also, the Mini is easy to take apart and work on.
I found an old ipod and been looking up what some people have done, from changing usb C, adding bluetooth, and now hearing this software. Exciting stuff
Whilst I didn’t own an iPod classic in its heyday, I have a fondness for them due to how simple and easy it is to use and modify. I own a 5th Gen that got Frankensteined with a 7th gen front and hard-drive whilst getting a new screen and battery, but I haven’t touched it since iPods blew up again (thanks to the dankpocalypse (no shade, I was happy they got the recognition they deserved)) but seeing this video makes me want to dabble in the missing stuff again. Like putting flash storage in, or shove a Taptic Engine in for a little umph in my music choosing experience.
Loved the vid man! Thank you for showing off your cool iPod too 💪
I have a 120gb iPod classic 6. It’s been fully thrashed and abused. I bought it with the original box in 2020 for $65. It has chunks of the metal torn out of the faceplate and it’s full of dents and scratches . You can barely see the text on the back. Despite that the original 120gb hard drive still works perfectly. I’m gonna use it until the battery or hard drive dies then I’ll fix it up a bit. I love the feeling of the hard drive spinning up. It’s like a little clockwork music player. I love it. I have it hooked up to my hifi with an apple universal dock. Sounds fantastic
everything everything thumbnail LETS GOOOOOO
lets go indeed
Hell yeah
I got the FiiO KA13, their highest end USB dongle because I thought I needed that extra power. Later I didn't end up needing that much power and regretted my purchase an dwish I had the FiiO BTR 15 (wasn't a thing when I got the KA13) or a DAP. But since then I've been more and more satisfied with the KA13 and am happy with just that.
How did you get this iPod modded?
Elite obsolete electronics
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the iPod classic sixth gen because I still have mine with a laptop drive in it, and I’ve been thinking about either going towards the 5.5 general or just getting an SSD to install into this. Your video has helped sway my decision towards just getting an SSD for my current iPod.
Even for what it is, with just the bare bones mid tier JBL headphones I have from 2016, it still sounds so wonderful.
My favorite artists to listen to on it are the Beastie Boys, Bob Dylan, and The Aquabats! and mostly because the Beastie Boys have a song that is listed with sound testing in universities.
I always tell people if you can’t hear both the bumpin bass and the high keyboard note at the same time in Beastie Boys “Brass Monkey”, then your setup needs help .
Oh man, iPods we're like a status symbol when I was in high school (back around 2004-2008). I had an iPod nano 2nd gen. After digging it out after so many years, I found the screen to be completely broken. However, my wife's iPod nano 4th gen still works like a charm and is almost in brand new condition, so I'm starting to use that. I hope this thing lasts me a life time lol.
iPods, umm have 2 of them. A 20G Gen3 B&W and a 60G Gen3 Colour. The 60G is still in the car glovebox and only recently stopped serving as CarPod duties, attached to a BMW OEM head unit, in an ‘03 Coupe. Since Roon ARC was released this has been my go-to source, running on a iPhone Mini 12, I have access to my entire local library in whatever format & version I have stored it in, plus all of Tidal, at either CD, MQA or now FLAC HiRes. Dongle is a Ztella Pro MQA and IEMs are MP145 for mobile listening, and the iPod integration in the car, gives upto 24/48.
Local library is circa 9Tbytes of music, 110k albums but over 63% in 24-bit. Don’t see the need for the older tech here, unless you want to be nostalgic.
This was a BRILLIANT video, please do more like this!
Love so much to watch DMS's videos
The way this guy talk about audio nerd stuff with so much passion is awesome
I love mine. I have had a 20GB iPod 4G for a while because of the darker WM8975 DAC. But once Dankpods started blowing up, I started a collection and got a 60GB 5.5G , ipod mini 2G and installed a 256GB compact flash card, and a 1GB nano 1G. I replace the batteries as needed, and just ordered a 256GB SD conversion for my 20GB iPod 4G. I rip CDs to iTunes using lossless ALAC and it sounds amazing, one of my favorite ways to listen.
I started with my ifi zen dac paired with philip fidelio x2HR and I remember I genuinely teared up when I booted up my first tidal song. The instant shock from the clarity and sound stage that I experienced was incredible having come from cheap wireless earphones. since then I've grabbed quite a few more bits. Fiio KA13, Letshuoer S12 Pro IEM's, Shanling M3 Ultra Dap, Audio-Technica ATH-M50xBT2DS (I love these) and my newest addition the Fiio BTA30 pro (for my 4k player). Unfortunately it's an expensive hobby as you don't want anything less than the best sound possible, I even paid to replace the windows driver to provide LDAC bluetooth.
I wouldn't consider myself an audiophile, I don't dare get into the technical or tinkering of sound, I just want to appreciate music how it's intended to be heard.
Honestly, I'm super happy with using Tidal or just shoving a load of my own files on my phone and playing stuff over a BTR5 - feels like the most convenient option for my use case really.
After digging out my old ipod touch a few weeks ago, I'm not sure I get why everyone is raving about using these old devices. If anything, the main enjoyment I've had out of digging out my old ipod has been listening to some old songs I had on there which I hadn't heard for the best part of a decade in some cases and definitely not on nicer gear. Between my desktop DAC and my little dongle
playing high res files and the stuff on my ipod played out of that, I much prefer the former so that's what I'll be sticking with.
My goal for the future is to build an offline library on a home server which I can either access online through something like Roon or by copying files across onto different devices. I suppose a dedicated music player could slot in somewhere in the future but it feels much easier just to spend a bit more on a phone with a tonne of storage for my music when I'm on the go.
Same here. As much as I’d love to be one of these people who can leave the house without having their phone and go running at the park with nothing but an iPod in their pocket, most of the music I love I’ve not physically bought yet and streaming it is the only way I can listen to what I want on the go. I have 20 ish albums on CD that I could put on an iPod but I’d easily wear those out and the cost of getting an older iPod + getting physical copies of every album I could ever want to listen to would cost a whole lot of money. Some would mention pirating and I’m not above that, but risking prison time or extreme fees just isn’t worth it. I’ll stick to streaming.
@@Luke-cp2jz Total opposite here. I have over 34000 songs downloaded to iTunes (the VAST majority of which I have purchased). I still use my iPod Classic everyday, but am thinking of getting a modded one with at least 500GB of memory to hold my whole iTunes collection. I don't really stream anything.
I've had my mother's old iPod for years now, never used it, finally started and was loving it till the hard drive gave out. Didn't back up my music but i made sure to redownload everything again onto some usb drives and i have a modded iPod coming back to me in a few days, i can't wait to get back on it
Never stopped using them since the first one I got new, the iPod Mini 2nd Gen. I've had an iPod in my pocket pretty much constantly for 20 years now.
It’s not an iPod, but I use my Sony WM1Z all the time. It works great with my ADX -5000 headphones and my 64Audio N8 custom IEMs as well. I love having an all in one device that works anywhere
I love my A306!
Still rock my WM1A 😎👍
Sonys are SO MUCH better!
I love and still use my 160 GB iPod classic 7th generation mp3 player (as well as my 120 GB iPod classic) and I transferred hundreds of CD albums onto it (and bought the odd album or song on iTunes too several years ago). :)
I noticed on my iPod, classic, if I turn the volume down to like 15% I can still hear it. If I did at all my phone, I couldn’t hear anything.
I also have a 160 GB classic. I have tonnes of CDs ripped with ALAC files on it.
Still listening to it today. :)
stil using my 160GB black one LOVE IT
I got a 7th gen and modded it to hold 2TB and a 3000mAh battery, as well as swapping out body and face colors. I still use stock iPod OS, and it works great for me. I'm not an audiophile, but I absolutely hate having to charge everything these days so I insist on having wired earbuds and headphones and there are too many ads with streaming.
I have 3 ipods still in use! Including one in my car. Yes, Love them! They are still wonderful
Fantastic! I dug out my old iPhone and it works perfectly. It has come back to life. Thanks!
You sold me on the DSP/EQ features in Rockbox.
Yo! I do a lot of travel and boy oh boy is having an iPod Classic in my pocket nice. It's something that's going to stay in my ears for 16 hours from when I get up, go to the airport, go through security, wait for a flight, get on the plane and fly, Deboard, get food, wait for flight, fly, land, grab pelican from baggage claim, get uber to hotel, checkin, and at last, open the door to my hotel room for the next week.
No interruptions from texts, amazing noise isolation from my IEMs, no need for internet, phone battery lasts longer , tuned eq just how I like it for noisy environments, man. Why did the headphone jack have to die.
I never owned any of the iPod classics growing up and I love the one I put together. It’s a 5th Gen with custom front and back plates, 512GB storage.
The only prebuilt and Modded iPod I would be a Bluetooth 7th Gen with USB-C, and 1 or 2TB of storage.
I know a lot of people are getting into iPod. I myself, along with a few others, are Zune users. Zune isn't actually half bad. I wish there were hardware mods like there are for the iPod, but I'm still glad to be listening to music on my Zune.
It's been great to see everyone get all my level I've been carrying on an iPod since 2006.
I have a 1.5 TB Rockboxed iPod and I love it. Very good player. I’ll never ever use all that memory either.
Nice vid man can I ask what brand glasses are your wearing?
Could you provide a link for the modifications you made? The SSD, backplate, and battery? Please? 🥺
Elite obsolete electronics
I've purchased a couple of Ipod Classics ever since they were first launched in the early 2000's but sold them all except for one, they were neat for the time but there was no proper 10 band EQ setting, just the terrible built in EQ presets, I still have fond memories of me enjoying so many songs on one tiny device which for the time was cutting edge in the early 2000's, but now is pretty standard.
ripping my cds in wave format and playing it on my ipod 7th gen... it's perfect
Awesome video!! I have an IPod 5th generation and I installed many of my favorite songs and artists on it as well as some videos with copytrans. I’d love to check out more on rockbox or even try installing it to do more, cause man listening to my favorite songs without interruptions is the best feeling. Also I absolutely love Everything Everything!! Get to Heaven is the best album in my opinion
I used to own a couple of apple DAPs - the 2nd gen, Nano and Classic, then there was a Creative Zen. Really convenient to have your music collection stored and ready to go. Since Fii0 started releasing their players I just fell in love with portable audio all over again.
iPod Classics are retro now but I never stopped using mine.
Since no one else has commented about it and DMS won't answer the people who asked: The green Spotify like theme he shows in the video is called "Themify".
THANK YOU
I wonder if they have a theme that is just classic iPod coverflow. Because, not gonna lie, coverflow is legitimately my favorite way of browsing albums. I still miss that feature from my iPod days.
I concur. These times are so weird. People just seem nuts to me. I loved the iPod. I had the original, up until they discontinued the touch. I love the original. The battery is dead, but I still own it. I’m a painter, so it’s covered completely in oil paint. It’s a beauty…
I KNOW it's NOT small, but... For a while I used an LG phone (I bought 2nd hand cheaply) that has the Quad DAC. I then installed 'PowerAmp' - my favourite music player (it IS a powerful app for listening to music with), and then loaded all my music (100Gb) onto it, and it was a great setup (WAY better sounding than my Motorola phone!!) 😏👌
😎🇬🇧
I have loads of iPods, mainly Nanos, and 3 Classics (5th gen and 2 6th gen). Love them all and use them all.
I'm so glad that RockBox is still around. I thought this was going to be about iPods with stock OS, didn't expect it to be about RockBox. I remember buying a used iPod nano back in the day and being shocked at how hard Apple was working to stop them from being usable under Linux. They routinely and purposefully thwarted libraries that made it work. I got tired of that cat and mouse game and installed RockBox on it. It was awesome, freed my iPod in so many ways. After a few months the iPod died and part of me blames RockBox honestly but I still wouldn't have used it any other way. I also learned that I'm not compatible with Apple and to this day I've never felt the need to get another Apple product and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Really cool that you can dual boot to either the standard Apple OS or Rockbox. I see from previous comments below that Rockbox supports FLAC instead of only ALAC like the Apple system. Nice. And love that you can drag and drop files instead of having to go through iTunes which was always a pain. How hard is it to load Rockbox on an older iPod? Is there a link to how to do that you could provide? I'm pretty sure the DAC chip and implementation in an iPOD can't compare to a "real" DAP but for casual listening when out and about on IEMs or easy to drive headphones, they were always a nice, easy to carry device. Thanks. I might have to dig mine out of the drawer now.
If you've done a battery mod I think rockbox lets you set the amount of mah it has, might help with the estimation
Everything everything spotted! Absolutely elite album and band.
Damn! I have just been using my iPod while BMXing and bowling due to how much lighter it is and less clunky than having a giant phone in my pocket. Saves phone battery too. I feel a little less of a boomer now, thanks for that!
Love this video! I've a 5.5Gen ipod Classic with the memory upgrade to take 4 micro sd cards. Sounds great with IEMs. Are there any other mods apart from battery? Think there were other upgrades which ended up with diodes hanging out of the iPod which I'm not interested in. Will have to research....
these diodes do bot have to hang out of the 5.5 😂
@@buckethead420 Yeah I see that now, last time I looked at this was many years ago, I think one of the earliest mods did have that. Doesn’t look like there’s any other options to upgrade the sound been developed in the intervening years though….
My question still remains for DMS. You recommend DCA E3 for portable headphones. What pocket friendly DAP can you drive for DCA E3 for best sound quality?
Agree with the fact to get an external device makes you less distracted, that's why I just keep a Sony Walkman device with all my songs on it.
yooo I'm an iPod modder/refurbisher and I just wanna throw out there: there is BARELY a difference in the dac quality between the 5th and 6/7th generations. Ive found most people tend to agree with my opinion on it but:
Cirrus (6/7): Great and tight instruments and detail
Wolfson (Most iPods 5th and older): Nice warm and wide soundstage.
It makes me disproportionately happy to see iPod afterlife. I use the very tiny iPod shuffle at the gym. It has go me through so many boring cv workouts and is therefore a vital part of my life regime.
The name is a bit of a misnomer because the shuffle function has never really worked I have to keep skipping its favourite songs, which can be a drag on the rowing machine when I don't have a free hand. I don't know if anyone has cracked a randomise function. My scan disk players have thhe same problem. I have 1000 songs stored and I can be sure that90% will not get played.
Beautiful ipod. Love the all black look. Im on the fench of going back and using an ipod again
GREETINGS FROM THE BEAUTIFUL EMERALD COAST OF NORTHWEST FLORIDA!
I still use my Zune sometimes...ANDROID 4 LIFE 😂 !
Seriously, the gear & equipment underscore the importance of our individual Audiophile HiFi experience that we ALL love.
Over the years, I have collected every single classic iPod for some reason or another. I don't know why I just love those modals. I may just use one of these mods to fancy up one of my classic iPods
I've got an iPod Touch 7G and I absolute love it! Why?
The battery lasts a while and I can listen to music wherever and whenever I want, no internet connection or subscription needed! And no matter what people say, iTunes is an awesome app for organizing your music!
I tried to replace it with my phone but Kies (Samsung) absolutely sucked (doesn't get updates anymore anyway) and I actually prefer having a device for music that's not my phone because I can still listen to music when my phone is low on battery (which happens much more often with my phone than it does with my iPod).
I currently have Astell Kern's budget DAP which is called Activo CT 10 and I really love the music quality that Activo CT10 provides.
Don't have one but ever since spotting the mods you can do to them, can't seem to forget them :)
love the see-through cases too!
iPod with powerful headphone amp for high impedance headphones and lossless Apple music, that would be awesome. I would pay alot of that!
Interesting review. I have one with a more robust battery, but the unit itself was now way too light for me. Felt like a feather. So the tech guy added lead to give it a more satisfying weight.
Who’s your tech guy? I’ve broken the battery connector off the board and would love to get it repaired.
im no audiophile but im attached to these and liked my experience modding a nano, but nano was stuck at 8gb so i replaced ol reliable with a classic with iflash. ipod from the same year as my car, feels good bros.
Many thanks, that was really good. I've got the last generation Classic and you have motivated me to use my IE600s on it as well. I love the design. I've got A&K SP3000 with HiRes music and a walk around SR35 but the Classic is a beautiful standalone.
Definitely dig it !
Sadly I lost it but my ipod touch 2 got the clearest and loudest sound I heard on a portable device next to the Sonys walkmans mp4s
My father has two classics, I told him to keep them as they are the champs!
I carry an iPhone and a Pixel, both with .5 TB storage so I always have my music with me, but seeing that iPod makes me feel like it would be cool to have one again
I bought a Cowon 10 years ago and never looked back. The iPod, built for convenience and portability, can’t compete with true hi-fi devices in sound quality due to its lack of high-end components like DACs and amplifiers. Many portable options today offer these features without the need for modifications.
My iriver H120 was flash with rockbox , man the memory , it's cool to see that because the hardware on the apple is pretty good , the OS was the biggest no go.
I used Rockbox on my iriver H10. Man those where the days !
My allmost 20 year old ipod classic still sits in my desk. It hasn't worked in 10 years; something about a corrupted hard disk, and no one in India seems to be able to be helpful. But I still have hope it'll work.
One concern. How long will one be able to purchase the unique charging cable?
I love the sound of wolfson DACs.
Nice keyboard, ceramic keycaps are amazing
Great video, even better hoodie!
Seeing this just now from Puerto Rico. What brand are those earphones you show in the video?
I love the idea of them, I just don’t have the music collection to justify an iPod (or any dap really). I mostly just listen to music on my phone with iems and a dongle dac.
What back is that you have on your ipod? looks aftermarket. I like it.
I wish you could provide more info on the mods. I’m trying to revive my old piece for 2 months now and I’m still completing the parts list so it’s a one time operation. What adapter/storage combo did you use? Do you have original battery or an upgraded capacity one?
I had a 160GB classic filled with over 90k in songs and complete albums , everything from cinematic scores to audio books and almost any album you could probably think of. Long story short someone stole it at the gym and when I tell you i haven’t slept right ever since i mean it
I have 9,000 full albums on my 1TB iPhone. I like having everything all on one device. 🤙
what are those pads on your 7506? they look nice
I'd get an OG iPod to add an SSD.
That's the only reason for one of these. I often wonder how good the DAC in these were?