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the fractal designed Define R4 case gets featured on the wow build logs of the

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week section more than any other case click now to learn more about it welcome

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to my unboxing and overview of the Mayflower O2 or objective 2 headphone

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amp and we've actually also got the odac headphone amp combo unit as well uh in

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terms of packaging they're a pretty small company so we got I guess about

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the best you could expect from a small company so it arrived in a box with packing materials and all that good

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stuff I took some pictures at the time but I have since gotten rid of it

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because I was on my motorbike and I couldn't take the box away with me so

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let's start with what is a headphone amplifier in the simplest possible terms

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it's a component of your audio setup that allows you to drive volume higher

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and assuming it's reasonably welld designed it can also noticeably improve

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the audio quality on any device that is plugged into whether it's a PC phone MP3

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player or whatever else so what is this thing specifically this is a variant of

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the objective 2 it's from Mayflower as I said before it aderes strictly to the

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original O2 design so the quality of the internals is undeniably solid and it

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features a rugged aluminum housing that is available in silver or black there

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are other options available on the Mayflower website such as a quarter-inch

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Jack option uh there's upgraded knobs which we do have here on the black one

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and you can check out all of the options in the pricing and availability Link in

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the video description there may even be a special discount for lonus Tech tips

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for members just throwing that out there the O2 or objective 2 was designed by an

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audio engineer Enthusiast guy who went by the name of nwav guy or Northwest AV

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guy with the goal of creating a simple

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value optimized amp that purely does what it's supposed to do amplify the

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signal from your audio Source without altering the sound signature so that is

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to say with a neutral sound signature or flat frequency response this will allow

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audio files without spending a ton of money to get the most out of their

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expensive cans he's basically dropped off the face of the Earth at this point

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but not before giving permission to diyers and entrepreneurs like Mayflower

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alike to manufacture the design that he created all of the io is on the front of

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this unit which is great because it can be put on a desk or even shoved into a

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bag due to its ability be to be powered for 8 to 10 hours by two rechargeable

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nickel metal hydride 9volt batteries from left to right we see DC power in

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the power button itself the headphone out volume adjustment knob a gain toggle

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which is essentially a switch to increase the loudness of the signal

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depending on the impedance of the headphones you're trying to drive you may need more gain for higher impedance

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headphones the stock configuration is 2 and 1/2x gain and 6 and 1/2x gain but

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that can be changed if you want anything from 1X to 12x and finally Source input

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that can be anything with a 3 1 12 mm Jack or even an adapter using the O2 amp

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is simple no drivers or anything just turn up the volume of your Source like

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your phone to the maximum plug it into the amp plug in your headphones I would

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suggest turning the amp down initially because you could like blow your ears

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out and then adjust to the point where it's comfortable and you're ready to

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hear a difference in the quality of your music or other content with that said

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the amp is only one part of the audio pipeline so to speak you may find that

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while a better amp can noticeably improve the listening experience

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particularly with decent quality headphones let's say in the $200 range

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in up it can also draw your attention to deficiencies in other parts of the

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pipeline that you never noticed before lowquality compressed MP3s will sound

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muddy and ugly and pops and random interference from particularly terrible

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audio sources like bad onboard computer audio will come through loud and clear

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improving the source audio files audio files sorry that always

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cracks me up the the files um using higher quality files such as lossless

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formats or even 320 bit MP3s will help

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regardless of whether you've got a fancy new amp but if your Dax solution built

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into your PC is still terrible then you'll need a deck you can get a sound

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card or you can get an integrated unit that's designed to perfectly match the

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O2 amp the OAC the second unit right here so this is the silver one the black

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one's just the amp contains the O2 amp and the odac within the same chassis it

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looks mostly the same other than that it shows off a different external finish in

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front knob this is the cheaper knob except that it has a USB port at the

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back that USB port requires no drivers to be installed and works on PC and Mac

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all it does is apply the same principles of driving for high quality with no

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changes to the sound signature of the original track and simple design to

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achieve very very respectable results if you're an audio geek you can check out

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the performance measurements of the odac online but if you're not then you'll

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just have to kind of take my word for it it's very very good especially

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considering the price so who is this for

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these two solutions are priced at around $130 and $250 respectively which might

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sound like a lot but if you're a budding audio file and you're picking up a nice

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pair of headphones anyway it could be argued that it is a great investment

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there's cheaper stuff out there from the likes of F and others and there's much

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more expensive stuff out there but the O2 hits that sweet spot where the

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general internet consensus seems to be that spending less gets you a noticeably

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worse experience and spending more doesn't necessarily yield much of a

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return on your investment until you spend a lot more just the amp itself

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made my phone sound noticeably better with my relatively inexpensive imem but

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I didn't notice much of a difference compared to say for example a decent

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sound card with all of that said other than my Sennheiser HD 555s my headphone

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collection consists largely of very unexceptional Cheapo gaming headsets so

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take everything that I say about my experience with it with a grain of salt

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speaking of salt audible.com Linus is the place to go where for the same price

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as a packet of salt at a fast food restaurant that is to say free you can

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get an audio book when you sign up for a new membership they have over 150,000

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audio books in including salt sugar fat how the food Giants hooked us by Michael

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moss and salt a world history by Mark kolansky so you can get one of those

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particularly that second one for free if that sounds interesting or something

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else if you prefer remember guys that's audible.com Linus for a free audio book

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check it out like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it

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leave me a comment with your thoughts on the O2 don't forget about that discount

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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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to subscribe