The Reality of Modding iPods in 2024

What you should expect when buying and modding an iPod in 2024. Is it for you?

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:09 My knowledge on iPods
0:38 Why use an audio player instead of streaming services?
3:22 Availability of iPods in 2024
4:22 Modifying your iPod
5:35 Obstacles and challenges of modding an iPod
5:47 Differences on syncing with Mac vs Windows
7:15 Transfer speed expectations
7:52 Song skipping and choppy playback issue
9:09 Solving the skipping issue
12:36 Limitations of the iPod
13:00 Song/storage limits
14:35 Rockbox as a workaround to those limitations
15:56 Methods of obtaining music
16:34 What headphones should you use?
18:49 Tips and advice for getting an iPod
20:14 Lossy vs lossless music
21:02 What's on my iPod
22:02 Why is my screen red
22:13 What's next?

Links:
Dankpods: @DankPods

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[diana-cykj]

I modded one of my 7th gen 160gb iPods using flash duo board with 256gb + 128gb SD cards. It worked fine until I put about 48 000 songs on it, then crashed. Lol! I couldn’t even restore it with iTunes, it was just not responding at all. So I cracked it open and replaced 128gb SD card with a 64gb SD card. It restored with no problems. So now it contains 256gb SD card + 64gb SD card and works like a champion! I currently have over 39 000 songs on it and 2.7gb of free space. I am pushing it, lol!😅

[goodasdead]

I give 0 fucks about any service or stream once I have my music on my SSD based iPod.

[remiremillard]

I used to use rockbox as a kid, can report its beyond solid. If anything it makes transferring files way easier because computers just read it like a usb hard drive. ✌️

[JackMaltano]

20:15 You can copy lossless AIFF files directly from a CD unto the iPod. FLAC files dont run on iPods, but can be converted to AIFF using the flac command line tool since both are lossless audio formats. Nothing beats the warmth of a Wolfson DAC running on an iPod. Fair warning, once you go lossless, nothing else will do. This account is shadowbanned, so doubt you'll see this, but if any chance, just wanted to say welcome to the iPod community. ❤

[goaway]

Audiobooks are my addiction and my collection is very large. I prefer to have my all books offline and carried with me so when I outgrew the 256GB Ipod my choices were to mod an Ipod myself, spend a lot of money for a commercially modded Ipod classic or pick up a high capacity refurbished Iphone without a SIM card and delete most of the apps from it and only leave Itunes intact on it essentially turning it into an Ipod that could be a phone again if I wanted to do so in the future but I'm happy with my Android phone for phone use. A 1TB refurbished Iphone cost much less than the same capacity commercially modded Ipod classic so that choice was easy to make.

[MickeyMishra]

My favorite looking iPod of all time is the one with the 4 back lit buttons. And of course the O.G. iPod.
Nice that these are still making the rounds today.
One thing I have to wonder is playing back just WAV files as they are by nature uncompressed at the 44.1Khz 16 Bit Sample rate of Red Book Audio CD data format; those should play just fine I would think as the O.G Apple Player from what I recall played those.

One thing to note about streaming services is that often (YouTube for example) you will find a great track, and then it will be lost forever due to some copywrite claim etc. (there was a Great remix of Blink 182, and ALL is lost. Even the title & Info of the song)
So if you find something you really like? RIP IT! You never know when it will be gone. (YouTube Music especially! )

Not sure about the Koss headphones, but will give them a try.

[George]

For me my mp3 players are definitely more than another tool in the box. I still use Spotify, I still buy CDs and vinyls, hell even the odd cassette but mp3 players have always felt more personal, I have one in particular I only have a handful of albums and various YouTube audio of my favourite shows on that I definitely feel has become a comfort item to me. If I can’t sleep I don’t have to grab my phone or iPad I can just plug and play my way into dreamland.
In modern consumer culture especially I really feel like that real, raw love for music can often be lost, it’s all so easy now, people don’t have the same connection with listening anymore. I don’t want my music experience to be confined to a subscription or an app that could be taken away tomorrow.

[clydeosterhout]

CDs are selling for less than a bunch each at yard sales and thrift stores, and our library has hundreds of them. I now have hundreds of albums on my 128 GB gen 5.5. I never have to search for something to listen to!

[Cookefan]

I really enjoyed watching this video from this great young man. I’m in my mid 60’s and have a lot of old Apple gear including the iPods Ive bought since 2009(?). The battery is shot but its always been in a crystal protective case so the case is in pristine condition. Its really incredible how affordable a used one is and its also incredible that Apple is no longer threatening people who make restorative kits with lawsuits! Needless to say, I have a Humongous CD collection but I also have never stopped buying content for the series of IPhones Ive owned. My intent is to have the battery replaced and update the hard drive. It looks like one can actually accomplish this on your own with a reliable kit. Thats my intention and then I just might start buying, refurbishing and selling these wonderful devices as a side hobby/hustle.
Once again, I really like this young man. Very pleasant, intelligent, rational, friendly, funny and relatable. Thank you young Mr. Sun!

[PercyPanleo]

4:00 The nano line should be largely avoided nowadays

The battery is right behind the screen, so when it expands it cracks the screen and even if you're an expert it's super easy to destroy it trying to repair it

The iPod mini is also a good contender for easiest iPod to mod, though you have to be a bit careful and the only aftermarket parts that exist are batteries and compact flash drives/SD to CF adapters

[Kenaroni]

Longtime Mac user here. I’m glad young people are enjoying iPods. They are fun devices to update and use. I too did SD card and battery upgrades on classic iPods and iPod Minis. I also put Rockbox on most of them and used that for a while. But I couldn’t figure out why my battery life was really poor and assumed it was just cheap batteries. I later read that Rockbox can’t power manage SD equipped iPods as well as the stock hard drive iPods. So I tested this by putting my music back onto the iPod using stock iPod OS and iTunes. This definitely solved the battery problem, so I sadly won’t be going back to Rockbox. One benefit of using iTunes to load music on the iPod is creating playlists. Smart playlists are especially fun, where it can automatically create playlists based on tag attributes that you choose. Try it out if you haven’t before. It’s great fun if you have a large collection with lots of types of music.

[Quizerno]

Two years ago I modded an iPod classic to have a new battery, a 64GB SDD, and got it to work with Rockbox using a old obscure patch.
I used it in my car for a while, and while I don't use it now, there's just something really fun about using older devices and getting them up and running.

[Miro]

i have the same iPod since 2007 and i modded mine from 30GB to 256GB with a new battery and transparent shell. Great Video :)

[fakeemmcee]

I've been temporarily without a phone which has kind of forced me to start using an ipod again and I love it. I just flashmodded an 80GB 5.5 gen ipod and it works great - one thing I was surprised about was how light it feels compared to my old 7th gen that still has its mechanical hard drive. One important thing to note about the 5th/5.5th gen ipods is that inline controls from your headphones (if you have them) won't work on the iPod (I found it out the hard way and thought my headphone jack was defective).

[dalantemaes]

Thanks for the great video dude! You actually started me down a crazy audio rabit-hole; and I couldn't be enjoying it more!

[jonathansantaanatellez]

I was looking for years the reason for the songs skipping and how to solved, and i thought changing the hard drive will solved that I’m glad I cross with your video thanks!

[JUANFERNANDOCH]

I had the same problem of skipping songs with elac, I solved the problem changing the format of my songs with itunes, so if you have your songs in flac, you have to change the format to elac with an external program and again create a new version of your music with itunes, this solve the problem of skipping the songs.

[FilippoMidali]

Rockbox works perfectly, I never had the issues you talked about and remember that 5.5 has a Wolfson DAC on it..worth the lossless listening, Very good quality DAC

[unicodefox]

For me, I had the skipping issue when encoding to ALAC in anything other than 16/44100/2, and when using FFMPEG to encode.

Using the XLD software and specifying the 16/44100/2 it works flawlessly.

[chrissoclone]

Thanks for the good tips here. I have two iPod classics, 80 and 160GB, one has a bad HDD and was lying around for a few years already (probably needs a new battery too) and that's the one I want to try modifying first. However, those iFlash adapters are really hard to find over here in Germany and pretty expensive, so I wanted to go with the cheap and easy noname solutions from Amazon - either a CF card adapter + CF to SSD (I can't find any direct SD card adapters) or a mSATA... not sure yet, and everyone just posts videos about iFlash conversions sadly, so I'm a bit at loss which adapters will fit or have issues.
I'll probably use Windows for Sync too, ever since the demise of iTunes on the Mac I can't authorize my Audible books anymore, which makes the Books app absolutely useless, while iTunes on Windows still works excellent.