Gadgetory

we find ourselves in the midst of a revolution an audio revolution well more of a controversy really so in light then of the rumors about Apple's abandonment of the de facto standard three and a half millimeter audio jack in favor of their proprietary reversible USB implementation here is my review of The Odyssey sign one of the first lightening headphones on the market and woven into my thoughts on this product are going to be my thoughts on the shift towards lightening and I guess USB type-c for that matter as an audio jack because in some ways the advantages and drawbacks of this product will be a look into the future of mobile audio in general Tunnel Bear is the simple VPN app that makes it easy to browse privately and enjoy a more open Internet to Tritonal bear for free check out the link in the video description alright so if you've seen a pair of headphones before you've seen something that's functionally you know pretty much like this but probably with less BMW design works influenced those guys really get around hey not that I'm criticizing BMW group's offshoot industrial design and consultancy houses efforts here the signs are a rare audiophile headset that just oozes style starting from the top the shiny stitched natural leather headband contrasts wonderfully with the matte aluminum end caps that has the smooth stepless frictional size adjustment mechanism I wish it had a bit more padding but since the strong clamping pressure of the ear cups is most of what keeps it on your head I won't take off any marks here on that subject though the same mix of leather and aluminum is present in the ear cups and makes the signs a little heavier than your typical out and about on your headphone like the Sennheiser momentum on-ear but thanks to the way the load is distributed I never felt like they were at risk of falling off with that said the clamping force out of the box is stronger than I'd like causing my ears to get sore after about an hour of listening even with my earrings removed okay then the next big question is is it worth it then for these shockingly compact planar magnetic cans this is a technology that sacrifices some weight design complexity and sometimes trouble performance to deliver a sound with minimal distortion and rich smooth accurate bass and that only a few short years ago was basically only found inexpensive difficult to power products or from obscure brands like well Odyssey though I guess the way that they've stormed into a mainstream is a testament to what they've done with the technology that was introduced to North America by Yamaha back in the 70s then basically faded into obscurity the short answer then is maybe after some break in the ear pressure was much more tolerable for me although I still don't prefer on your headphones and the signs sound great they don't isolate ambient noise particularly well but the image astonishingly well and sound very natural for a closed back design it's safe to say these are the best on ears I've ever heard and in my opinion this is how do I describe it it's a beat generation sound done right listening to my usual mix of trashy popular songs on Apple music the impressions I came away with are that the highs are detailed enough without being fatiguing to listen to a common complaint for me personally with audiophile grade headphones and bass performances fantastic as long as you don't mind the somewhat heavy-handed approach it's tight dynamic and just a blast to listen to but without doing anything to obscure the crystal clear mids that let vocalists guitar solos and the like really pop but why do they sound good is it the planar magnetic drivers or is it the fancy lightning connector at the other end let's talk about the cypher cable because on some of the more mainstream sites and blogs that I've read there seems to be some confusion about it for starters while it's true that you cannot playback 24-bit 96k low Hertz HD audio files which Apple is allegedly planning to make available shortly on iTunes out of the headphone jack on your iPhone today the mini stereo connector itself has nothing to do with that limitation it actually has to do with the audio processing electronics the DAC or digital to analog converter the DSP or digital sound processor and to a lesser degree the amplifier that are inside the iPhone that is what's not able to process files encoded in this manner something that isn't actually the case even with other competing smartphones so sorry there's no such thing as digital headphones and the converter to an analogue signal is still taking place it's just doing so at a later stage in the chain with more advanced hardware than Apple pre-installed in their phone so the bump right here that contains the microphone and the inline controls is what's so special about the cable because it has all of that hardware so then the advantages to this approach are as follows one removing the jack save some space inside the chassis of the phone this image from iFixit shows you about how much - isolating audio gear from processors and wireless antennas is widely regarded as a good thing 3 functionality like volume control track skipping etc can work more consistently or even be enhanced in the future leading to number 4 the ability to update the firmware or store settings within your headphones themselves something that we're already seeing with the cypher including the ability to set EQ settings with their app 5 being able to power your headphones off the phone could mean RGB lighting active noise cancellation or other features without the need for batteries and 6 back to where we started the ability to bypass Apple's decidedly mediocre audio implementation in favor of something that's hopefully better but all of this comes with some disadvantages - number one headphones with this functionality will be more complex to design and manufacture which contributes directly to the price you can expect to find on the sticker - the lightning cable combined with the circuitry for audio processing will make the cable and/or the headphone itself bulkier and heavier 3 and this is such a killer for me you will require an adapter Apple is rumored to be providing one in the box if you just want to use your onboard audio and for well you will require a separate likely more expensive adapter if you want to charge your iPhone and use your lightning headphones at the same time a common occurrence for mobile gamers I think this commenter on five Mac probably put it better than I ever could because what this really boils down to for me while I understand the desire to eliminate a potential opening for water dirt and Pocket lint unless Apple and other manufacturers for this matter because type C audio is functionally similar though it's a bit more of a quagmire in terms of the spec unless Apple uses this opportunity to introduce industry-leading water resistance to their products or anything else that people are actually asking them for they'll have sacrificed functionality for perceived elegance yet again just like with the 2013 Mac Pro and the 2015 MacBook whose diminutive size and few ugly ports look beautiful until you have to attach an octopus of adapters just to plug in the you need to get anything done back to the conclusion for the signed headphones though with the cipher lightning cable and some EQ fine tuning I'm confident anyone would love their sound and quite frankly they sound pretty damn good even without it even better with a higher quality source file and better upstream gear this is a very solid product as long as your ears tolerate on your headphones a little better than mine do speaking of solid products ifixit.com is not a product it's a website but they sell products so to go along with their 19000 step-by-step repair guides they have a huge inventory of replacement parts as well as tools with lifetime warranties on them so that you can repair your stuff instead of junking it and replacing it or paying someone often as much as it would have cost to get all the parts and tools that you needed in order to do it for you the big one that we're featuring today is the pro Tech tool kit which includes the new 64 bit driver kit which has 10 more bits than the former 54 bit driver kit as well as their magnetic casing their newly designed little top precision driver their precision ESD safe tweezers their wider variety of plastic opening tools and picks their suction cup for display removal they're ESD safety strap to make sure you don't destroy your stuff with static shock while you're working on it and the best part of it is that it's only sixty nine ninety five and what's even better than that is you guys can save five bucks on any purchase of $10 or more over at ifixit.com slash Linus we'll have that linked in the video description so thanks for watching guys that this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured at Amazon in the video description also linked in the description is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you should totally join now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right corner to check out our latest video over on channels super-fun