Well, yesterday I received my iModded iPod photo (60gb) back from red Wine Audio. I let it cook a while, and then played it dor an hour or so last night. I stayed up listening to it later than I should have, which is a good sign right there.
The sound quality difference between the regular line out and the imod line our is not subtle, and would be easily identified by anyone with good headphones and good hearing. It makes a much bigger difference than I expected.
Frankly, I had gotten used to the fact that even the line out of the iPod is rolled off in the treble, and the iMod gives all that back. The treble is clear as a bell, very extended, and very natural. It is not the least bit rolled off, and this is immediately noticable. Everything sounds so much more clear and open. There is no treble grain at all that I could discern. Really quite remarkable actually. A warning: if you listen to lossy-compressed music files on your iPod, I don't recommend the iMod. You will hear the compression artifacts very easily, and it will bug you. But if you use Apple Lossless, you will love what the imod does to the treble.
In the mids, the mids were just a touch cleaner. Not as dramtic as the trble, but cleaner nonetheless. Same with the bass, really. It might have been a bit more extended, and the bass was better controlled and detailed, but there was NOT more bass. If your only reason for getting the iMod is more bass, then it isn't for you. But the quality of the bass does improve. I think there is enough bass from iPod via the regular line out, and so having the iMod clean it up a bit was great.
Imaging is also much improved. The soundstage is more fleshed out. Really the whole thing is just so much less muddy it's remarkable. And I did not think of the ipod as having a muddy sound via it's line out. But once you hear the iMod line out, it's so much cleaner.
This is worth the $200, no doubt. Nice job, Red Wine Audio!
