the fractal designed Define R4 case gets featured on the wow build logs of the
week section more than any other case click now to learn more about it welcome
to my unboxing and overview of the Mayflower O2 or objective 2 headphone
amp and we've actually also got the odac headphone amp combo unit as well uh in
terms of packaging they're a pretty small company so we got I guess about
the best you could expect from a small company so it arrived in a box with packing materials and all that good
stuff I took some pictures at the time but I have since gotten rid of it
because I was on my motorbike and I couldn't take the box away with me so
let's start with what is a headphone amplifier in the simplest possible terms
it's a component of your audio setup that allows you to drive volume higher
and assuming it's reasonably welld designed it can also noticeably improve
the audio quality on any device that is plugged into whether it's a PC phone MP3
player or whatever else so what is this thing specifically this is a variant of
the objective 2 it's from Mayflower as I said before it aderes strictly to the
original O2 design so the quality of the internals is undeniably solid and it
features a rugged aluminum housing that is available in silver or black there
are other options available on the Mayflower website such as a quarter-inch
Jack option uh there's upgraded knobs which we do have here on the black one
and you can check out all of the options in the pricing and availability Link in
the video description there may even be a special discount for lonus Tech tips
for members just throwing that out there the O2 or objective 2 was designed by an
audio engineer Enthusiast guy who went by the name of nwav guy or Northwest AV
guy with the goal of creating a simple
value optimized amp that purely does what it's supposed to do amplify the
signal from your audio Source without altering the sound signature so that is
to say with a neutral sound signature or flat frequency response this will allow
audio files without spending a ton of money to get the most out of their
expensive cans he's basically dropped off the face of the Earth at this point
but not before giving permission to diyers and entrepreneurs like Mayflower
alike to manufacture the design that he created all of the io is on the front of
this unit which is great because it can be put on a desk or even shoved into a
bag due to its ability be to be powered for 8 to 10 hours by two rechargeable
nickel metal hydride 9volt batteries from left to right we see DC power in
the power button itself the headphone out volume adjustment knob a gain toggle
which is essentially a switch to increase the loudness of the signal
depending on the impedance of the headphones you're trying to drive you may need more gain for higher impedance
headphones the stock configuration is 2 and 1/2x gain and 6 and 1/2x gain but
that can be changed if you want anything from 1X to 12x and finally Source input
that can be anything with a 3 1 12 mm Jack or even an adapter using the O2 amp
is simple no drivers or anything just turn up the volume of your Source like
your phone to the maximum plug it into the amp plug in your headphones I would
suggest turning the amp down initially because you could like blow your ears
out and then adjust to the point where it's comfortable and you're ready to
hear a difference in the quality of your music or other content with that said
the amp is only one part of the audio pipeline so to speak you may find that
while a better amp can noticeably improve the listening experience
particularly with decent quality headphones let's say in the $200 range
in up it can also draw your attention to deficiencies in other parts of the
pipeline that you never noticed before lowquality compressed MP3s will sound
muddy and ugly and pops and random interference from particularly terrible
audio sources like bad onboard computer audio will come through loud and clear
improving the source audio files audio files sorry that always
cracks me up the the files um using higher quality files such as lossless
formats or even 320 bit MP3s will help
regardless of whether you've got a fancy new amp but if your Dax solution built
into your PC is still terrible then you'll need a deck you can get a sound
card or you can get an integrated unit that's designed to perfectly match the
O2 amp the OAC the second unit right here so this is the silver one the black
one's just the amp contains the O2 amp and the odac within the same chassis it
looks mostly the same other than that it shows off a different external finish in
front knob this is the cheaper knob except that it has a USB port at the
back that USB port requires no drivers to be installed and works on PC and Mac
all it does is apply the same principles of driving for high quality with no
changes to the sound signature of the original track and simple design to
achieve very very respectable results if you're an audio geek you can check out
the performance measurements of the odac online but if you're not then you'll
just have to kind of take my word for it it's very very good especially
considering the price so who is this for
these two solutions are priced at around $130 and $250 respectively which might
sound like a lot but if you're a budding audio file and you're picking up a nice
pair of headphones anyway it could be argued that it is a great investment
there's cheaper stuff out there from the likes of F and others and there's much
more expensive stuff out there but the O2 hits that sweet spot where the
general internet consensus seems to be that spending less gets you a noticeably
worse experience and spending more doesn't necessarily yield much of a
return on your investment until you spend a lot more just the amp itself
made my phone sound noticeably better with my relatively inexpensive imem but
I didn't notice much of a difference compared to say for example a decent
sound card with all of that said other than my Sennheiser HD 555s my headphone
collection consists largely of very unexceptional Cheapo gaming headsets so
take everything that I say about my experience with it with a grain of salt
speaking of salt audible.com Linus is the place to go where for the same price
as a packet of salt at a fast food restaurant that is to say free you can
get an audio book when you sign up for a new membership they have over 150,000
audio books in including salt sugar fat how the food Giants hooked us by Michael
moss and salt a world history by Mark kolansky so you can get one of those
particularly that second one for free if that sounds interesting or something
else if you prefer remember guys that's audible.com Linus for a free audio book
check it out like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it
leave me a comment with your thoughts on the O2 don't forget about that discount
code that you might find on the lineus tech tips Forum depending when you're watching this and as always don't forget
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