What would be a good portable Dac/Amp to use with my HD6xx and Sony Xperia 1 V cell phone?
I am new to this hobby. I purchased a HD6XX and plan to use it with my Sony Xperia 1 V cell phone, that has a 3.5mm jack. I was wondering if I needed a portable dac/amp or just a portable amp and if so what would one recommend? Any assistance one could provide, would be greatly appreciated. Kind regards, Haz
Mar 7, 2024
I just modded my iPod Classic with a 128GB flash card and am eager to burn these in with my newly built toy.
1. Do a ton of homework on your specific device. Apple's closed ecosystem means that they could afford to be finicky about part selection, firmwares, and so on. You'll want to know your device's unique part ID #, what Generation it is (did you know the "Classic" came in 3 generations, and each of those gens had "Thick" and "Thin" chassis?), and what the battery capacity of the unit is. This will be important as you select parts and plan your re-build.
2. Time to decide on RockBox or the stock iPod software. This will also help you make some decisions down the path, as the stock iPod software generally does not like you trying to jam high capacities (such as 512GB) onto it's system. More on capacity limitations: https://www.iflash.xyz/store/iflash-compatibility/
3. The Flash adapter. You can get em here, but make sure to pick one that meets your capacity goals and is compatible with the physical restrictions of your device: https://www.iflash.xyz/store/iflash-solo/
4. Get a flash card or multiple flash cards. Make sure they're UHS-1 and rated for 80mb/s+, especially if you want play Lossless via RockBox.
5. SCARY TIME. Buy some plastic spudgers and/or metal spudgers (see: https://www.iflash.xyz/store/flexible-pry-tool/) You can also do what I did, which is ANNIHILATE a pair of plastic spudgers, give up, and whip out my Leatherman tool's knife to open the old girl up. Work along the edge where the face of the device meets the shiny metal backing until you pop all the clips that hold the unit together. BE VERY CAREFUL OPENING, as the battery cable is attached to the backing and is easy to rip out.
6. Detach the battery cable. Open the clamshell up and be careful not to dislodge the headphone cable. Drink a beer, put band aids on your cuts you gave yourself. You are Dr. FrankenPod.
7. Once the beer is consumed, detach the hard drive cable and remove the old spinning disk. Insert the iFlash adapter and pop in your storage cards. NOTE! make sure the cards are FAT32 formatted, or the iPod will give you trouble. Put on the foam spacer pads, tighten the rear panel with your mitts, and pop it back on. DON'T FORGET TO RE-ATTACH THE BATTERY CABLE! You might also want to use some fine grit sandpaper to remove tooling marks here, but that's up to you. I like mine with REAL BATTLE DAMAGE!
8. Power the unit on and recover the iPod using iTunes. Go install RockBox if you want, but at this point, you're done!
I know this turned into kind of an instructional, but that's pretty much the way to go about it. I spent about 2 weeks planning the project and 6 hours between last night and tonight getting everything squared away. It was a fun learning experience, and I have a REAL FAST iPod Classic 6G with 128GB of flash storage.
That being said, replacing the battery is pretty straight forward once you're in there. You've already disconnected the battery ribbon cable, you now need to physically remove the old battery from the back of the case (it's glued in). iFixIt sells replacements for the Classics for about $15, and they have about the same capacity (stock is 550mAh, these are about 580, I think?) RockBox also allows you to tell the firmware what the real battery size is so it properly tracks utilization.
There are mods out there to be able to jam a MUCH larger battery into the unit once you do the iFlash conversion, but your mileage may vary based on the type of iPod you have.
Mine has been working great since last night! I just need to add more album art and figure out this weird track skipping issue.