The Apple diyMod: My Take on the Famous iMod [56k killer] Featuring 3G, 4G, 5G and nano 1G! - Page 123

I dont find the 4G ipod photo DIYMOD (just finished one tonight BTW do you want pics Jon??) and actually decided to follow your advice tonight jon and not desolder anything. I have become pretty proficient with getting a really solid connection and reliably removing the caps without damage anyway, but since 4G parts are harder to get a hold of I decided to give it a go a play it safe. and I noticed you didnt have a very clear instruction on the photo version, so some pics might help others in future. this is the first time i've done this version. sent to the dock too. plenty of room in there after being used to doing ipod videos. couldve used some thicker wire, but ended up using my favorite; the 30AWG cardas silver in teflon. was tempted to use the 28AWG cardas silver in cotton, but decided against it for ease of routing.

so I dont actually hear that much difference between the 2 dacs. I didnt have a listen to it before I modded it and the last time I heard a stock 4G was so long ago I cant remember. but I crtainly dont remember being repulsed by it. perhaps your unit is faulty afterall. the difference between stock and modded ipod with the right caps, is not what I would call subtle, but yes, why bother doing this and then using sub-par cabling and amplification. just my 2c

i think, although of course could be wrong, that he was comparing the stock 4 and 5g ipods. And then he states that the reason people rave about the 4g diymod is that the 4g ipod sounds so bad.

As in his opinion he thinks the 5g is better than the 4th gen, he is assuming that there wont be such a dramatic difference between stock 5g and diymod 5g as there possibly is with the 4th gen.

It is this last point regarding what the difference actually is between his stock 5th gen and the diymod 5th gen that is making him ponder wether to perform the mod or not as in comparison with the stock 4th gen the 5th gen is already far ahead.

At least, thats how I read it.

yeah I kinda got that impression too, but wasnt quite sure. IMO there is just as much improvement with the 5G, we are afterall removing pretty much identical components in the 2 mods.

Spot on.
The 4g ipod is notorious for sounding *****, especially the bass fall of due to the naff caps. Iv'e hooked up mine to an amp on the LOD and was less than impressed.


I like the 5.5g straight out of the dock, and its my main rig. But i wonder what improvement bypassing the stock caps etc would do, is the difference between 5.5gDIYMOD and a stock 5.5g IPOD that big when using a LOD.

IF it is, i'm in trouble 'cause ill dig out the soldering iron. If not, i'll leave it alone.

(not so sure why my OP was unclear? )

There is a difference between stock and imod at elast (I have yet to hear a diymod but for all intents and purposes they should sound identical?) Obviously the modded ipod has a cleaner signal and that helps with detail but I do have to say that using a big cap dock such as vcaps will really draw an extremely noticeable distinction between the stock ipod and the diymod, it just takes things to a whole new level introducing more weight and body to the sound signature with a more accurate and defined bass response and wider and deeper soundstage.

Bare in mind these are my recollections involving an rwa imod and alo vcap dock and alo black gates lod, and I have been without that rig for a month or two now as I sold it on, but will be attempting a diymod very soon as the stock ipods just dont cut it once you've been used to an imod and vcaps.

I'm sure others will chime in here, but for the cost of a couple of caps and a bit of hook up wire I think its a no brainer to give it a bash.

Jon i'm thinking of putting a couple of ground wires in this thing too. i'm getting what is referred to as blitter noise with this mod; I get it to a much smaller degree with my 5.5G, but its really almost silent. in both cases though, as soon as a signal is piped through the signal wires the noise disappears; i've lisrtened carefully with the amp turned up reasonably loud and in silent passages of music and it seems to be absent, but with the amp turned on and no music playing, when I use the clickwheel I dont get clicking like you would if you were hooked into that signal somehow, but I get electrical interference as with the photo mod the wires pass under the screen and closer to the HD. also i'm pretty sure we need to solder to the north side of the caps, but the south side of the resistors. the first port of call for the traces for the dock pins seem to end directly underneath the south side of L2 and L3. I have tried the south side and it sounds nicer, but the blitter noise is slightly worse (I think). I havent tested the resistence between dock pins 3,4 and the north/south sides of L2 and L3 yet, but I will in the morning. planning on inserting the guts of a dock that hasnt been soldered and pull all the pins except for 3/4 and a ground. so will then plug the LOD connector in and just use my DMM to measure across pin 3 to L3 and 2 to L2 and find which of north/south has the least resistance. (easier than using the pins in the ipod I think and I havent got a breakout board (although this is a really good excuse for me to buy one.

anyway I thought i'd try to lessen the blitter noise; I thought I might give twisted pairs a go inside; just need to find a convenient place to gound them (one end only) any ideas there Jon?? I could just choose one of the spare ground pins in the dock as they would be nice and close. just make sure its not one of the grounds that i'm using in the LOD. not that its too drastic as thety are all connected, but probably best to make it a bit less direct (resistence is useless hehe)
sound like a plan? or have you found it to be superfluous as it seems to disappear when music gets going? i've noticed this with many amps anyway when they are on but with no signal passing through them.

,edit:: above I was actually meaning the north side of the resistors and the south side of the inductors. so used to doing ipod videos that I slipped and said caps as its the caps next to the dac you remove/bypass with the 5G, not resistors. just to confirm; its the north side of the resistors and the south side of L2 and L3.

thats intresting,

could it be the fact your bypassing the inductors on the dock?
Inductors reduce interference don't they?

I'm holding back till you find out more.

WTF is Blitter noise?

google it its the term for interfrence caused by internal electrics. sometimes you will get it when a soundcard is installed too close to a graphics card. if you are doing the mod on the ipod video, no need to hold back; in fact dont wait on my account; this is me being obsessive. the sound disappears once you start playing music. it could probably be minimised by more thoughtful routing of the wires, but I would like to find a better solution as the ipod Photo is setup so that is very difficult to avoid the screen as it goes over the top of the area we are modding

[QUOTE=joneeboi;5610054]There aren't many pictures of the iPod 4G photo because hardly anyone has posted any. vvs_75 did one and so did one other person if I remember correctly (the name escapes me), so there hasn't been very much venture into that territory as far as I can remember.


That would probably be me.

Post 1342:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f6/app...4/index90.html

I removed the resistors on mine without too much trouble. I did lift
a board trace, but managed to salvage it with some trusty superglue.

I did think about that actually, but didnt listen before and after, so dnot know how much is caused by the wires, but I have a feeling a bit of it at least is as the dac itself is very near the screen, hard to avoid that. i'm using 30AWG cardas silver, so will be enough room for a twisted pair no problem. I will maybe give that a go tomorrow. I have experienced this kind of noise before with HD noises in ipods, but never the screen I recognise it as the screen or graphics chipset interfering. hmmmm I might look up the spec sheet to find the GPU and see if ive gone anywhere near it. because its exactly like blitter noise.. exactly.
well I have some thin shielded cable that might fit phisically, but may not meet the bugetary requirements for this job... think piccolino... nah.. might try twisted pair first.
yeah I thought about that too, would have to desolder the wires that are there as they would just act as a big antenna otherwise. all the same I might give it a go. even though ive already made an LOD for this job. maybe thats why the original RWA IMODused the HP jack hmmm.

yeah it does seem to be centered around the screen and GPU with the clickwheel tied in as well.

yeah there is, but it would still have to be soldered to near the dac, which is right underthe screen.
LOL wow; flashback . now that'd be a blast from the past hey JON hehe. a 4G DIYMOD with absess

will do, pity I already put epoxy strain relief on. hehe only a little bit and not over the pads, so its still doable. i'll make sure to posrt some pics even if it gets freaky in there. hehe

OH and BTW I had my orientation mixed up before; its definitely the north side of the resistors you solder to. too much coffee; not enough sleep. gonna go to sleep now and attack in the...afternoon... 6.10AM here now

Anybody got some spare (suitable) Caps and wire they wanna flog,
suitable for a 5.5g and mini^3????

i'll pay well including postage.

PM if so......

Well done guys

ran into a problem today that means I may have to stop for a little. I was installing rockbox and before I did the latest stable build I thought I would upgrade the apple firmware. so that worked ok, but after it finished it asked to be plugged into the wall charger to finish the install...... I dont have the wall charger.... and I tried it with various other wall chargers with USB outputs with the apple cable plugged into it; just like the apple charger works; thinking that it would just need 5v supplied to the correct pins and it'd be cool. no dice. the apple charger must have something else in it. strange. you wouldnt think so. so annoying; I think i've still got the one from my iphone somewhere, but of course I never really use it as you can just use USB on both my ipods and iphone to charge them. so this sux as I was sooo close. I know the mod works but I cant finish my tinkering to try and get rid of the EMI without being able to test the unit audibly.