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more dear support is your company's name
really pronounced [ __ ] is there a backstory or was it just
because it was funny i got a reply from [ __ ] audio co-founder
jason stoddard personally who happens to be in the process of chronicling their
journey as a tiny startup over on headphy which i'll link in the video
description if you're interested and he took a moment to share a very relatable
moment with me where early in the process of product development on the
asgard his wife got so tired of hearing
him say no i can't do that i have [ __ ] to do
that one day she said why don't you just call the new company [ __ ] since that's
what you're always doing and that's the back story as a fellow small startup i
definitely loved my wife definitely didn't anyway from a grab your attention
standpoint i can see why they did it it makes you go
did i just read that and the slogans that they can make up to
market their amp and dac products which range from hundred dollars each all the
way up to units that are highly upgradable and cost 750 dollars each are
pretty much endless all right so with that out of the way what do i actually
think of their entry level amp and dac offering the industrial design is
something that you're going to love or hate it's a clean and utilitarian steel
box with a curved front and some ventilation holes applied as needed if i
had to complain i guess i wish that they stacked a little more gracefully rather
than just having one sit on top of the other with little rubber feet on the
bottom but the subdued white led illumination that they've got is a nice
touch the units each come packed in environmentally responsible boxes that
are pretty much all cardboard that include just rubber feet a little
pamphlet and in the case of the magne and ac power adapter that's it i would
have liked a usb cable with the modi and maybe a short rca cable with the magni
but i understand that to hit these prices with almost all manufacturing
including the pcb and production in the us they needed to
keep costs down besides while i don't care many audio snobs will prefer to buy
their own fancy cables anyway so when it came to listening tests the main
competitor i compared to was an objective 2 and odac combo unit from
mayflower electronics a more compact but
slightly more expensive solution to the combined stack on paper their specs are
i mean pretty similar at least they look like it to me and while i threw pretty
much everything in my arsenal at them from my hd 600s which i happen to have
handy right here all the way down to random gaming headphones and my ie80
in-ears when i was done there wasn't much to say they both sound great to me
so great that i just couldn't tell the difference with my wife switching them
back and forth on me while i wasn't looking i don't have any orthodynamic
headphones yet so i wasn't really pushing either of them to their limits
and my conclusion is just going to have to come down to features
both solutions are entirely driverless on your pc and tick all the right boxes
in terms of specs with their low output impedance making them suitable for
everything from very difficult to drive 300 plus ohm headphones down to iems the
o2 standalone can be run off of 9 volt batteries but is more expensive than the
magni the o2 has a gain switch to toggle
between quieter and louder output while [ __ ] basically says
i don't know use pc volume control or exercise caution with the volume dial
when you use your iems the wall wart for the price equivalent o2 from mayflower
at least plugs into the front of the unit which is kind of unsightly but [ __ ]
uses an unusual ac wall warts so it actually goes from 120
volt to 16 volt ac so you can't easily replace it so they
both kind of have some trade-offs with the only simple solution to get more
features or not deal with the trade-offs being pay more
this is a value solution that sounds great let's love it for what it is and
quit complaining all right i get that speaking of paying more i really like
the style of the [ __ ] guys they've got expensive stuff but with all the usual
nonsense in the audio world they take a surprisingly down to earth no [ __ ]
approach to their marketing for example right on the hundred dollar magnes
product page it says it may be the only amp you'll ever need and their 350
valhalla tube amp product page doesn't wax philosophical about the superiority
of tubes it just says and i'm paraphrasing a bit here it's a tube amp
if you like tubes you might like this and if you don't like it then you can
swap the tubes out for something else enjoy love it love that approach another thing
i liked about them is something i usually can't test but i bought the
stack so i was just another customer to them i emailed in about an issue with my
hd 280s that was causing some interference in the left channel
whenever i adjusted volume on the magni they promptly replied and offered to
cover shipping for me to send the unit back gave me some sensible
troubleshooting steps and explained that some headphones can act as an rf antenna
in certain cases it was isolated to my hd 280s out of 10 plus pairs and only
while turning the volume knob so i didn't bother exchanging it overall
solid product solid folks over there making it and highly recommended if you
like their particular flavor of trade-offs versus the objective 2 and
odac guys like and share this video if
you liked it dislike it if you disliked it and leave a comment on the Linus tech
tips forum linked in the video description if you want to discuss this product or you have any constructive
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