Daily driving an iPod classic

A while back I got my hands on a 80GB 6th gen iPod classic for free. It still worked great but the battery life was pretty mediocre and using it with my Linux desktop was a pain.

I ended up installing Rockbox on the iPod, since it makes managing music easier and allows the iPod to play flac files, which most of my music is in. However, with this custom firmware, and prettier skins. It was pretty obvious that this old 80GB hard drive was struggling.

I ended up purchasing a iFlash Quad & a 3000mAh Battery, with the plan to just swap them in, add a 256 GB MicroSD and put it all back together. It couldn't be that hard right?

Here's an image from the iFixit guide for this model of iPod:

I ended up absolutely obliterating the rear case, main frame clips and the headphone ribbon cable... Meaning I had to order a new rear case and headphone assembly ...

Once those new parts arrived though, it was really easy to swap things in. Except now:

• The top clip on the rear case isn't fully engaged
• The left headphone chanel is louder than the right²

The top clip is concerning since I don't know if the battery is being squashed or if the new back case is just not great quality, and the headphones being imbalanced is nothing Rockboxes balance settings can't fix...

Regardless though, I'm pretty happy with the result. I've been using it non-stop for a while now and I still haven't had to charge it. I'm trying to run the battery flat so that the battery level will be more accurate once I re-charge it to full.

I've loaded it with all my favourite albums and either listen to an album in its entirety or shuffle every track on the iPod. I might eventually make genre playlists, but I'm trying to keep only music I want to listen to on the iPod. With my PlexAmp setup I've got a lot of music I don't actually want to listen too and always skip. I want to avoid that with this iPod.

I'd really recommend this setup to people who just like to listen to their own music. Don't get a 6th or 7th gen iPod though. The all metal build feels great but holy fuck it's a nightmare to open. There's probably more modern audio players but the one's I've found are just really expensive Android phones with headphone jacks. I like the small form and simplicity of the iPod!

Check out what music is on my probably on my iPod on my music page!