Modular Headphones.. What??
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,282 words · ~6 min read
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it's happened to everyone you find the
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perfect headphones I'm talking perfect
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in every way except the cords too short
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or the headband digs in or the Dank base
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drops are more like dank
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basements there are so many things that can go wrong that it's impossible to
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find a set that's 100% Flawless until
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now meet the tma2 modular headphone
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system from II the headphone maker that
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lets you have it your
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way the master keys Pro keyboard lineup from Cooler Master is available in three
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sizes each in white or RGB flavors check
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them out at the link below for their TMA 2 II has atomized
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their headphones into four constituent Parts headbands speaker units earpads
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and cables allowing you theoretically to
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mix and match to perfectly suit your needs and your budget every part in the
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lineup is compatible with every other one and they all have this understated
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postmodern aesthetic that you probably won't be surprised to learn came out of
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northern Europe these headphones are straight up a lot cooler than I am and
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their website is pretty cool too and refreshingly welld designed which is
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pretty important since it's all you'll have to go on you can't just go to the
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Local Best Buy and try every combination
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so not only does it let you browse the various parts available in each category
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it also offers several paths to choosing
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a suitable assemblage you can Dive Right
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In with their Nifty configurator tool or
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sync up your Spotify account to get a suggested config based on the music you
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listen to or you can just pick one of the presets that II has designed I think
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one of the best parts of working on this review was actually the assembly it was
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kind of like getting a new kit of Lego when I was a kid the components come
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individually bagged and putting them together is not only super easy but it's
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actually kind of fun the pieces snap together with plastic clips and Sliders
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but I want to be clear that yes they're plastic but I really don't get a sense
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that they had to compromise a whole lot on build quality in order to achieve
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their modularity goals the soft touch
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matte black components feel great and
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the headband sizes adjust with a very satisfying click so II sent us almost
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every flavor of each of the four parts
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so we've got ear pads with microfiber f
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leather or velour padding cord combinations from short to long to
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straight to curly to width or without
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inline controls and microphones we've got 40 mm Dynamic driver speaker units
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with all manner of different magnets diaphragms and venting and we've got a
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selection of slim or padded headbands
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almost the only thing they didn't include is their upcoming wireless
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Bluetooth headband so with enough parts
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to reconstruct all of II's preset
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bundles we set out to do just that from
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the $145 allar arounds to the
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$260 tone meisters every pair is
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subjectively very stylish with no tacky brand logos visible and the only
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Interruption to the clean matte black looks being an optional splash of color
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on the cord they're all lightweight and comfortable
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and I even prefer the long-term feeling of the overear tma2 configurations to
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that of the Sennheiser momentums and headband caliper pressure is snug of
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course a little higher on the on your configs like the DJ preset the ear pads
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are free to articulate a bit and you can
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plug the cord into whichever side you prefer nice but how do they sound well
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as you might ECT that depends heavily on
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your personal configuration particularly the speaker
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units and earpads so we're used to seeing
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headphone product descriptions full of marketing buzzwords and audio file lingo
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and while the II site is guilty of that to a degree what I will say is this the
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tma2 descriptions do contain some meaningful information some speaker
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units have Punch Your Bass and some earpads as advertised do create
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a wider Sound Stage but the summary I
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guess then is this all the configurations we tested sounded what I
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would describe as pretty solid at their
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respective price points though I would
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actually recommend avoiding the entrylevel S so1 speaker units as they
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were the only ones that stood out as being overly bright forward and kind of
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baseless thankfully s o2s are only 25
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bucks more and spending more does
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continue to get you a more natural sound
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but it should be noted I don't want this to come across as a suggestion that you
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just buy the most expensive configuration because that might not be
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the one that you personally like best
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which brings us to the big question then modular headphones like the tma2 do do
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they make sense compared to a comparably
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priced convention set definitely they sound good and
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you're not paying a premium for the
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modularity II's previous TMA 1
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headphones retailed for 200 bucks and are now available as the tma2 DJ preset
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for 200 bucks so what do you get well
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nothing you didn't pay for if you don't want inline controls don't buy them if
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you know you want a longer cord you're not forced to also pay for a stock
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shorter one this entire concept makes
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replacing damaged pieces or future
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incremental upgrades possible in a way that just isn't if you have to replace
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an entire headphone at once making them I guess more sustainable too so bonus
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while we're on that subject they've also got this one headphone to rule them all
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thing going on where you can actually transform them from Studio mode to
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sweaty gym mode by swapping out the earpads which takes just a few seconds
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or from wired to Bluetooth just by unplugging the cable now we're talking
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to be clear though we are not saying the tma2 is for everyone and it's going to
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Dethrone our favorite headphones not by a long shot but the best sounding
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headphones don't cost 150 to 250 bucks
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what we are saying is that if that is your price range these look great sound
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great and allow you to get the right headphones for you instead of the best
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compromise you can find on the
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Shelf Crunchyroll is the site created by
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most current episodes of new shows straight from Japan like Dragon Ball
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super and Twin Star exorcists and all of the content on their site is
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professionally subtitled our link down
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enjoy the many benefits of Premium like 1080p streaming uh getting new episodes
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of shows straight from Japan within an hour of their Premiere and being able to
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stream to a variety of devices like your phone tablet or game console you can
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continue your premium membership to Crunchyroll for just $6.95 a month so
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head over to crunchyroll.com Linus and sign up today or
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tomorrow so thanks for watching guys if you disliked dislike but if you liked
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