New iMod for the iPod 5G: A Red Wine Audio/ALO Collaboration - Page 15

Man we're really being freakin' tough on Vinnie and Ken here The posts in the last two pages have been killer. I say we just let them sell whatever they have to offer without complaint. If Vinnie suddenly decides that the Nano is worth his while modding and subsequently bring it to the market, then so be it. The market demand determines whether something will stand or fall. It'll simply be a case of "I told you so" and "look at the sales, 'nuff said". There's really no need to get too aggravated over what is actually quite a trivial matter. It will all unfold with the passing of time

Having said my peace, here are reasons that, while at the time did not seem big, but have become big as to why the 4g would be worth the $100 savings.

1. Listening while charging. (HUGE plus for me) Unless you don't care about not bypassing the stock amp.
2. Better battery life (if you use headphone out) because of the ability to free up the pod from dedicating power to the amp.
3. Having "unused" ports bugs the hell out of me on such small devices.

So basically, listening while charging

Plus I love the iGuy case which is SURPRISINGLY sturdy and effective, and they don't make it for 5g.

With such little spendable money, (being a college student) I make VERY specific purchases, and I saved and saved for this iMod... and putting so much energy into very specific people I expect 140% reliability, support, trust, performance.

I'm not trying to be mean or fickle, I just expect to be treated like a customer from such "Mom n' Pop" shops, not a consumer. That is why I shop with them. So a little worry about ethics is nothing out of the ordinary... if anything, what you all percieve as anger I mean to convey more along the lines of fear of commercialism and disappointment.

Needless to say, I'm a HUGE fan of Vinnie and Ken's work...between the two of them, I've spent easily over $2K. They have been the most helpful individuals I've ever dealt with in my entire life! Between the two of them I've probably emailed them over 1000 times (and they both can attest to that). Out of all the times I've emailed them, they've replied 99.9% of the time...and usually the reply comes within a couple hours, if not within the hour. They answer any question I have, not matter how stupid it is. They treat their customers how a customer is supposed to be treated, IMO. They are truly first class individuals. If they charged twice as much for their products, I'd still buy them based on just how they've treated me.

I just want to publicly extend a THANK YOU to Vinnie and Ken for all their quality service and quality products you don't find that very often these days. Keep up the good work, you've got a customer for life!

PS - I apologize if this email is a bit unorganized, but I just get agitated when I read posts that attack their work...and the way they've treated me, I consider it attacking a friend. Maybe I should send scrypt my thoughts and he could put them in a more eloquent way...he's really good at putting thoughts to words.

tw0k1ngs,

This isn't a market ploy and this is starting to get a little out of hand now... I still get MANY 4G iPods from customers who want them modded and will continue to mod them. There are lots of them out there, but yes, they are not as easy to obtain as they used to be.

I have been asked thousands of times to do a 5G iMod and I finally found a way to do it that yields the results that I am beyond pleased with. As I mentioned above, I tried modding the 5G a while back and it didn't work out well for me. I tried again (this time with the help of the ALO in making the cable that I required with the caps installed) and when I first plugged it in, I knew right away that I nailed it.... just like when a baseball batter hits a ball and knows from the sound of the bat that it was hit out of the park without even having to watch the ball in flight.

I have 4G iMod cusotmers who are pre-ordering the 5G iMod. I am sure that they will be posting their findings (and I do apprecate all the feedback) regarding the differences in sound quality and I hope there will be A/B comparisons. I mentioned my early findings in my posts above.

Hi mrarroyo,

It seems like these larger capacity drives that they are coming out with (100GB, 120GB) all use zif connectors. Unfortunately, these are not compatible with the 4G iPod harddrive cable. I have been searching for some sort of converter cable that will allow the newer drives to work with the 4G iPods, but have found nothing like this on the market. This doesn't mean that such a cable will not become available, and if/when it does, I will gladly install the larger drives in the 4G iMods for my customers.

Best regards,

Vinnie

Hi Nick,

Thank you for your post... I really appreciate it!

I think your last email to me was number 1059 or 1060, but I'm not counting

Keep 'em coming!

Thanks again,

Vinnie

Being a DIY junkie, I understood the level of complication Vinnie and Ken have to go through modding stuffs up - and that at Audiophile level mod.

So I have no qualms paying over $200 for my 4G iMod because I believe Vinnie deserves it. And perhaps even if he charge $300 I would still pay him because no other person on this planet earth are willing to go through the hassle of tweaking like him.

I wonder if the new 5G IMod was in any way inspired by the "Chinese IMod" that appeared (and quickly removed) in this forum a couple of months ago. That rumored mod involved external caps.

-Pony

And those were probably all in the last three days about the 5G iMod! LOL!

This is a very interesting offering from RedWine Audio and ALO. I remember talking to Vinni at the RMAF in 2005 about the possibility of modifying a PocketDock to include the coupling caps in order to maintain the functionality of the 3.5-mm stereo headphone mini jack. I am happy to see that this product has been developed.

I wanted to thank Vinni for personally responding to this thread because it speaks to his level of service and commitment to the audio community. There have been some references to pricing of the iMod but it seems to be overlooked that RedWine Audio supports owners of its modified iPods if a failure occurs. RedWine Audio only charges for parts but not labor and this kind of service is rare and may exceed the level of support offered by Apple--this reason enough to consider the iMod.

Excellent work Vinni.

Best,
iDesign

I agree, but I just do not feel content with being mislead about the superior DAC in the 4g. In all honesty, that was the selling point of me needing that 4g iMod instead of waiting for a 5g... since the 4g's are approaching 2 years old now... I even HAVE a 5g, but purchased the 4g because it was "superior."

I guess I just have to "suck it up".

You can always look at it this way, if you wanna do another 4g iMod (for whatever reason), it should be fairly cheap when the 6G comes out, cause nobody is going to want to have anything to do with the 4G(normal populace...which far outweighs the number of head-fiers, or people who know about the iMod). Just like nobody wants anything to do with the 3G.

Consider it a low(er) cost alternative. You can have an iMod that plays ONLY music, or you can have an iMod that also plays video....look at the cost differential that way, I guess...

As far as my comments earlier, if they came accross as brash or uncalled for, my apologies. Like tw0k1ngs, my purchases are VERY specific, and money isn't exactly abundantly flowing, especially now that there's a little one around So I felt SLIGHTLY decieved when hearing this news, especially with no forwarning or hints. It's much like buying the latest model car, you do you research to see if next years model will be THAT much better and worth the wait. In this case, there was no preview, just a release. But such is economy....I guess we just have to suck it up.

Chinese iMod...what was that all about?

After all is said and done, my main qualms are with the new pricing structure. I would be the last one to complain about the 4th gen imods but this new thing is crazy. We essentially have to pay almost 400 dollars just to mod our 5th gens versus the 200 dollars to get a 4th gen modded? And you guys are alright with that? This is just an example of how people with money to blow are highly irresponsible. Just because you can, you do so. And when people that actually value their expenditures and want to get true value speak up, we tend to get pushed aside.

I wont say anything further. But I still remain disappointed in this whole situation.

When are these expected to ship?

I nominate this as the 2007 head-fi thread

Although it is obvious it is not obligatory to buy a 4G o 5G iMod.

What is better a classic 1960 Jaguar or a more recent one?

It depends from the perspective that you are looking at it.

I also want to thank both Vinnie and Ken for developing this new iMod and to answer all the questions posted here and the thousands sent to them by email that they have answered so quickly.

Regards