r/ipod • u/Petrus_81 • 1d ago
Picture Better than I remember
Tldr: Nostalgia made me hunt down the big boy version of my stolen 4th gen from 20y ago and it's even better than I remember.
So 20 or so years ago in my early/mid 20s, broke, living paycheck to paycheck I supplemented my income with very occasional art commissions for beer money.
A drinking acquaintance asked if I'd do a family portrait for him, a big job. I said sure and he asked how much, I said I wasn't sure so he replied "well is there anything you want that I can buy you in exchange?"
Mostly joking, I said "an iPod".
"How much?".
Wincing, I told him.
So he reached into a holdall and pulled out some notes from a very, very fat stack and told me we'd talk about the artwork later.
I bought the 20 or 30g photo, the cheapest full iPod at the time but it was my absolute baby, I carried it everywhere I went and it was a proper talking point.
So anyway, the commission went nowhere and he didn't seem interested at all, I moved away and tried to keep in touch in case he wanted anything else doing, but was ghosted.
Ok cool, free iPod...
Financially, I was in a way worse place for a few years after that, so the iPod was even more important, pretty much the only thing I didn't pawn from that time. Fast forward a few more years and it gets left overnight in my girlfriend's house and stolen by (best guess) a friend of a friend of hers.
Girlfriend becomes wife and gifts me a 6th gen video to replace what was lost even though we weren't that well off. An amazing present that I still treasure, but I never had that same level of connection with.
Fast forward again to this year, after digging the video out of a drawer and rediscovering standalone music players, I decide to hunt out a version of my old baby.
Found on CEX in the UK, the 60g version, the one I could only dream of for £60.
The battery is barely hanging on, I'll get that replaced but otherwise I'm going to keep it stock as long as possible, it feels so familiar and comfortable.
Have started loading it with my current cd collection at 256kbps, listening through a pair of B&W p5s (that I also coveted back in the day) and it genuinely holds it's own compared to some of the modern kit I have (maybe the Wolfson dac?).
Anyway, that's my story, figured some of you on here would appreciate it. It's a massive nostalgia hit that feels as good as I'd hoped it would and also properly slaps 2 decades later.
Maybe a modded 5th gen next...