Red Wine Audio iMod iPod

The iPod finally grows us and becomes the music-making machine that it always could.

Buy an iPod?

Yes, but don’t let anyone know that you use it for anything but casual

listening.

Who wants to listen to compressed MP3s downloaded from the Internet?

Apparently, more people than those who buy high-end stereo equipment. Fifty million, to be more precise and we all know that figure is only the tip of the iceberg.

Anyone remember which part of the iceberg sank the Titanic? It wasn’t the part they could see.

What troubles me about the iPod is not the device itself. In fact, having spent more than a month listening to the Red Wine iMod, I have new respect for what it can do as a playback device. What really rankles me about the iPod/iTunes experience is that tens of millions of people have bought into the idea that convenience is more important than sound quality, even though one doesn’t have to download MP3s to the iPod to begin with. I suppose that I am dubious about the amount of music that people really listen to on a daily basis, or the need to have 000s of emaciated sounding tunes at your fingertips, when you could be enjoying fewer songs with better sound.

I am also frustrated by the fact that Apple still only sells AAC 128K downloads and that its chairman had the nerve to hold a press conference where he held the mighty iPod Hi-Fi aloft, declared himself an “audiophile” and proclaimed that he was “embarrassed” by what he had spent on his own stereo and that in all likelihood he would be replacing it with the $400 iPod Hi-Fi.

Having stuck with Apple computers for the better part of twenty years, I am pleased to see that the company has stormed back, but are we really supposed to believe that Steve Jobs is going to dump his high-end stereo for the iPod Hi-Fi, or should we view this as nothing more than slick marketing directed towards the lurking Bose customers who are looking for a hipper tabletop system to use with their iPods?

If Apple wishes to promote the idea that quality still matters, then the Hi-Fi should be embraced as a stepping stone for people, as it might encourage some to seek out even better sounding solutions. The concern, however, is that the iPod Hi-Fi is Apple’s Deathstar. Having convinced consumers that the iPod is the ideal playback device, the plan now is to convince people that all they need to spend to achieve audiophile quality sound is an additional $400 and they are good for life.

Right.

Apple is right about one thing. $400 is all one needs to spend to get their hands on the Red Wine Audio iMod iPod.

That’s good.

Red Wine Audio’s approach to improving the iPod pays off sonically, even though one does lose its headphone jack in the process, which is disabled and becomes a dedicated 1/8” line-out jack. The iMod is meant to be used in either your stereo/home theater as a mini digital music server, or with an external headphone amplifier and pair of cans. The iMod also disables the line-out from the dock connector on the bottom of the iPod, which precludes using it with any of the docking station systems that have become so popular, including the iPod Hi-Fi.

Another caveat is that the iMod works only on the 4th generation iPod (black/white screen and the iPod photo units) for the simple reason that the 4th generation iPod utilizes the Wolfson WM8975 DAC, by far the best DAC used so far by Apple on any of the iPod units including the iPod with video.

According to Red Wine Audio, the stock 4th generation iPod would sound good if not for its low quality SMT coupling caps which are in the signal path after the DAC, its op-amp output stage, the minuscule circuit board traces that travel from the top of the mother board down to the dock connector jack, a cheapo ribbon cable in the signal path, and too many crappy parts that really hold back the potential of the unit.

Red Wine Audio set out to improve the iPod’s performance in a number of areas: tighter, more defined bass, improved transients and dynamics, discernable decay of notes, more detail retrieval, improved transparency, greater top end extension, and soundstage depth and width.

Pretty tall order if you ask me.

In order to do this, Red Wine had to significantly shorten the analog signal path that follows the output of the Wolfson DAC. The analog output is rerouted off the DAC chip and sent to the 1/8” headphone jack (hence the reason you cannot use headphones with the iMod without an external headphone amplifier), but not before it gets to party with Black Gate Non-Polarized NX-Hi-Q coupling capacitors. From an operational perspective, the iMod sounds a lot better running on its charged batteries than connected to its AC power cable. Its output is also 1.0 Vrms.

There isn’t an iPod on the planet that can compare to this one. Let alone some CD players under $1,500.

What Rossi has done, is turn a mediocre platform into a sophisticated mini music-server whose potential is only limited by the quality of the system it is connected to.

All of the qualities missing from the iPod's playback; inner detail, midrange warmth, resolute and taut bass extension, soundstage depth and width, and most importanly - soul...is present when listening to the iMod. Rossi, should be congratulated for taking the iPod to town and turning it into a serious musical playback device.

Plugged into a headphone amplifier such as the Naim Headline, CEC HD53R, or the Headroom Micro, the iMod begins to make one wonder about the need for expensive loudspeakers, especially if the kids have you turning down the volume at night when you want to cut loose.

Run don’t walk.

Order two.