Red Wine Audio iMod (4th Gen iPod)

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The iPod needs no formal introduction... music lovers have been enjoying its first-rate user interface and features for years now, and more and more audiophiles are realizing that they can obtain favorable results using it as a source for their high-end headphone amplifiers and high-end stereo systems (ripping their music and playing them back as WAV/lossless files and using a line-out dock cable).

Unlike conventional CD players, the iPod offers many unique features. Here are just a few:
* Battery powered operation (so it can be easily ran "off-the-grid")
* Extremely short digital and analog signal paths
* Hard-drive playback
* A simple-to-use, high-performance interface that displays artist/album info and album artwork, offers the ability to create and use playlists, the ability to search through your music collection by artist, album, song, genre, etc.)
* A vivid color display
* Sleek aesthetics, small size (portable), and simplicity in connecting to your home or portable audio system

What you may not know is that that the 4th and 5th generation iPods use a very high-quality internal Wolfson Microelectronics DAC (Wolfson DACs are used in quite a few high-end home audio CD players).

For the music lover in us, all of these features are worthy of our attention. However for the audiophile in us, sonic performance is our highest priority and what Red Wine Audio has found is that the circuitry that follows the internal DAC (the analog line-out stage) needed to be improved in order to achieve true high-end performance.

We came up with a list of improvements to the sound quality that we believe are required in order to achieve true high-end performance (again, using WAV/Lossless music files):

* Tighter, more articulate bass (not necessarily more bass quantity, but much improved bass control and definition)
* A richer, more seductive midrange
* A less flat and more expansive imaging (the soundstage needs to open up and become more 3D, more wide, more deep, and with a better sense of height in recordings that offer this level of resolution).
* Improved transients/dynamics
* More detail retrieval and overall transparency
* Superior treble extension and sweetness, as well as better decay of long held notes and delicate harmonics

We take the analog output (line out) signal off of the Wolfson DAC chip and send it directly to the internal 1/8" headphone jack (converting it into a dedicated line-out jack) via high-end Black Gate Non-Polarized NX-Hi-Q coupling capacitors. This completely bypasses all the components listed above that degrade the sound quality of the Wolfson DAC's line-output.

NOTES regarding the 4th Generation iMod

The Red Wine Audio 4th Gen iMod converts the 1/8" headphone jack into a dedicated line-out jack (constant voltage output direct from the dac chip...no volume control), so the headphone output is disabled. The iMod is intended to be connected to either a high quality headphone amp w/ volume control or home stereo system, NOT directly to headphones (unless they have a built-in volume attenuator in the headphone cable).

While the stock audio line-out signal from the dock connector is also disabled, all other dock connector functionality remains in its stock form.




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