[fdaapproved]

the old school ipod, with the buttons around the click wheel, only 10gb. long story short left my good ipod in a glove box of a rental car in france and never could get it back. instead of shelling out $250 for a comporable ipod i've found my old ipod and have decided to open it up to replace the battery and throw in a new hard drive(not audio related but still trying to figure out if i can fit a compact flash card in through an IDE adpator rather than a 1.8" HD, any info on this please comment).
 
now onto the audio part. while I have it open, considering its an 8 year old piece of technology, was wondering what could be done to replace/improve the audio jack. the current jack inside the ipod is a Wolfson WM8721(http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/products/dacs/WM8721/). Not knowing too much about audio or improvements of this sort i made an account and wanted to ask some of the best audiophiles on the net. 
 
also was looking to get rid of the current apple ipod OS and instead throw podzilla on there. anybody out there have experience with this or any tips? if there is enough interest in the thread i'll probably throw up pictures and a little how to tear apart an ipod. 
 
thanks in advance guys, glad to be a member of this community.  

 

[bba1973]

Just ripping out the old DAC and soldering in a different model probably won't work. I haven't heard a 2nd gen iPod, but I know my 4th and 5th gens sound good (well, good for an iPod anyway). You should look into what's called the "iMod" and the "diymod."
 
As for an alternative OS, check out Rockbox. For more information, check out their website and read their online manuals.
 
I'd suggest you look into getting a 5/5.5G iPod, a Tarkan CF adapter, and a 32GB CF card. That's what I use, and I'm really happy with it. I'll never go back to a hard drive based player again.
 
When you say "audio jack," do you mean the headphone jack or the Wolfson DAC? It would be way easier to replace the headphone jack than the DAC.

 

[fdaapproved]

i meant the DAC, sorry for the confusion, and yes I realize there is tricky soldering involved but I feel like i'm up to the task. it was thinking that well, i've got it open might as well replace/improve anything i can in here. and that does make sense that ripping it out and replacing it with something different would throw it off a good bit. 
 
i also have an old 2nd generation ipod mini that will be getting the CF treatment, so i can't wait to try that out i've heard amazing things. but the CF adaptors really will fit in that size ipod? i ordered one anyways just to see if it could fit(hell, whats $5) so i'm hoping it will fit in there somehow, even if it takes some foam or filler. going to weigh the thing before and after to see the difference if it works thats for sure. 
 
regarding the diymod and imod, seems exactly what i'm looking for thats for sure. just don't really like not being able to use it as a portable system and having it dedicated to pair of external speakers. oh well i guess, rockbox looks awesome, seemingly a lot to wrap my head around though. quite intensive what it does.

 

[neosoul]

The mini does not need an adapter, the cf card will just plug right in.

 

[bba1973]

 
Quote:

i meant the DAC, sorry for the confusion, and yes I realize there is tricky soldering involved but I feel like i'm up to the task. it was thinking that well, i've got it open might as well replace/improve anything i can in here. and that does make sense that ripping it out and replacing it with something different would throw it off a good bit. 

Unless you hack the firmware and can write your own DAC drivers (or can get someone to make you a custom build of rockbox to work with the new DAC), I really don't think that option is going to work.

 

[fdaapproved]

yeah, sounds awfully complicated and i don't think i have the time nor the knowledge to code something that would compete with what's already there.
 
and marvy, oops, i meant for the 2nd generation ipod. instead of installing a hard drive with moving parts i want to attempt to fit in a CF through an adaptor and foam in the rest of the machine. see how it works.
 
updates though, opened up the ipod mini and installed a new battery and 32gb cf card. it turns on a works perfectly fine. however, when i go to update or turn on the ipod not plugged into a computer i get the folder with ! triangle. quite annoying and if anyone has any hints it would be much appreciated!