2004 was definitely the year of the iPod. I bought one, my brother bought one, my sister brought one, and even my Dad bought one.

Unfortunately, though, iPods sold in Europe have their maximum volume capped compared to similar US models – in fact, the maximum level is about 30% lower on the EU models.

This is apparently to comply with EU legislation. Unfortunately, because it affects line-level output as well as headphone output, it causes all sorts of problems when you use something like an iTrip or connect the iPod to your hi-fi or car radio’s line-in – the iPod volume is significantly lower than that of the other equipment, so you spend a lot of time adjusting volume as you switch between your iPod and radio or CD.

There have been several hacks that attempt to overcome this by tweaking a volume compensation tag in each MP3 file you download to your iPod. However, these are not ideal – you have to remember to do it whenever you update your play list.

I finally found a utility that did what I really wanted: just remove the cap entirely. The utility is goPod and it simply adjusts a field in the firmware to indicate that capping is no longer required.

It works really well. If you have an iPod in Europe, you need this.