New iMod for the iPod 5G: A Red Wine Audio/ALO Collaboration - Page 11

ugh if i want a new imod 5.5 gen total almost $800 for the whole package??

that is one hell of deep pocket burn i'm going to have if I decided to pull the trigger T_T

Whew... For a second there, I was doubting the rather heavy investment I put towards my iMod which I 'just' picked up from the post office today. I have been listening to it from the start and it has probably been about six hours Just wow... I cannot wait until the 200 hour burn in completes! I was quite disappointed at first, but further experimentation yielded differences that were very easily discernible to my Mini. I could hear hear improvement over the past couple of hours, but it has been lingering about the same for the past 2 hours.

So, all my doubts disappeared after I saw the price. Yes, I know, what a terrible thing for me to say. However, having recently purchased the iMod with my very budget conscious wallet, it would drive me insane to have a similarly priced iMod for the 5th gens. But I suppose slimmer devices and larger capacities come at a very non-dispensable price. Alas, I must thank Vinnie for his wonderful craftsmanship, and nickkknutson for the lovely pod. Kudos to these great gentlemen.

I must ask one question though. I have estimated that 200 hours of burn will total an amount of over 8 days. I plan to allow the iMod to burn-in 24/7. Is this a terrible idea? I do not wish to risk overheating/overworking it.

On a totally irrelevant topic, I must say that I admire your style of writing scrypt, although you can come off as a snob at times.I am currently an English major, and envy that you can manipulate words so easily in a social environment. My essays barely produce that much fidelity.

Well, it is true, but you will be paying around half of it to the ipod itself. Although the imod itself is $250, if you buy the imodded 80g model, it seems like you are paying only $200 for the imod. Probably Ken is buying ipods in bulk, so he can get a discount over the retail of $350. This is a good point, if you are already in a market for a new ipod...

In any case, I would love to see a dock with female mini adapter (I do not know, if it is possible to build it with all BG capacitors inside. Ken surely can say more about this) like the turbo dock, which will enable to use our existing mini-to-mini cables. I have a 4th gen photo unit somewhere here, and it seems like I would be better off, if I sent it to be imodded, other than purchasing a new 5.5 gen ipod directly from Ken.

I have been leaving my iMod on for the past two weeks with no ill effect Technically speaking the iPod has relatively little mechanical work since it reads a bit of the file, caches it, and then plays from the cache. This is how ipods get their long battery life, by reducing actual drive read time to short spurts and stopping the drive while playing from the cache. It's also how the ipod manages to be somewhat hardy to impact, because chances are when an impact happens the drive isn't actually moving. Went off on a slight tangent but hope the info helps

I'm contemplating sending my 5.5gen ipod to Vinnie, and it somewhat saddens me that I won't be able to burn it in as unattended due to being unable to plug a dock connector for power

Your statement piqued my interest. Do you have solid data to verify this? That a H120/40 + Micro DAC "sounds better" than iMod 4G?

I am asking because I have an H120 sitting beside me doing the job when my iMod gets charged

Thanks!

...Okay, the thing Vinnie is changing will only affect the voltage FOR THE LINE-OUT PINS. The charging pins will not be touched in terms of modification.

I know that, but how can I charge the ipod at the same time while the ALO iMod dock is connected? I'm burning in my 4th gen iMod by having it hooked up to an amp and the power via dock. I then left it unmolested in a corner of my computer room doing it's thing for a week+. I can't do that with the 5th gen iMod. Small annoyance, but that's what I meant when I typed that :P

Short answer: No.

I knew that was the answer, which is why I said I WOULDN'T be able to in my original post

Vinnie said that there's virtually no burn-in neccessary. It sounds good right from the start.

Are these blackgates different to the blackgates that Vinnie says need 200 hours to sound their best? I guess that could well be the case.

I have money ready and would love one but need 120GB and rockbox so it's not looking good just yet.

Not being able to listen through the line out while using ac power is also a dealbreaker for me. If I get home with a flat battery I can't listen until it's charged?

A had the same issue. The end of last year I came up to Hans, the owner of Qables, with the idea to have a lineout-dock-to-mini cable with an additional plug. There you could connect a USB cable for charging while listening through an external headphone amp. So you can use the charger or a computer. Well, so far no news from Hans. Maybe I should get back to him. Thanks Steven for reminding me!

Alex

You should talk to Ken at ALO instead...since he's the one that makes the cables for the 5G iMod.

Yes, you're right! I'm already in touch with Ken while waiting for my iMod Photo. This idea was before the 5G iMod.

Alex

Sounds like that might be a great solution! I think a lot of people would want that. Even if you never move the thing, just using at as a home source (which I probably would most of the time to be honest, just leave it next to pc), it is still nice to have it plugged into the wall so it is always charging, just unplugging it to run on battery power for critical listening. Nice to be able to do both.