The Reality of Modding iPods in 2024

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!😅

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

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.

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!

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. ❤

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

Absolutely great video! I love the way you've formated the key points you discussed. I found it both very easy to follow and very informative! I'll be here for your next one!

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.

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!

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.

nice video. good info. ive been getting iPhone pro max for years with the most storage so I can get all my music. and now with the thunderbolt cable syncing with my Mac mini is quick

I got some cheap iems and a 64mb 5.5 and I’ll be putting new caps and flash quad in it. I’ll be using rockbox and flac

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.

looking forward to the ruby build

Another great video! I was shocked when I saw my comment! Thanks! I just ordered a 30gb enhanced version today, hopefully it'll be here early next week. I'm going to see how much of my library (everything I've had ripped and backed up for a REALLY long time lol, and pretty much all just mp3 format) will fit on the stock hard drive for now. I'm planning on ordering the iflash quad, 3000mah battery, and depending on the overall appearance of the unit, possibly a new shell. I'll probably go with 256 of total storage like you have. I don't think I even have that much music, so I should be good haha

Nice Royal Enfield interceptor bike in the background

I use a newer sony mp3 walkman that can play flac files, built in microsd support, and modding it with custom firmware is easy too

Nice video Alex, not too long ago, not a rant as you say. We can skip ahead at any time. Nice to see a young man like yourself showing an interest in older school gadgets. You have a pleasant demeanour about you and I have subscribed to you today. Looking forward to future videos from you. Nice Bugatti by the way. Is that an 80s model? Look after that one mate she looks like a classic 😊…

Great video. I've had similar issues with files skipping on my modded ipod with Rockbox as well as reading m4b and aac files. I find Rockbox pretty unintuitive and their wiki is a total mess, organizationally speaking, so it's an exercise in frustration to try and learn how to master it. One mod I'd love to see would be an OLED screen for an always on display during playback, but these seem few and far between!

good shit man. new sub