Gadgetory

the fractal design define our for case gets featured on the when show build blogs the week section more than any other case click now to learn more about it welcome to my unboxing an overview of the Mayflower OH - or objective - headphone amp and we've actually also got the O DAC headphone amp combo unit as well in terms of packaging they're a pretty small company so we got I guess about the best you could expect from a smaller 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 well 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 - from Mayflower as I said before it adheres 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 there's upgraded knobs which we do have here on the black one 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 Linus 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 NW AV 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 if 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 di wires and entrepreneurs like Mayflower alike to manufacture the design that he created all of the i/o 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 to be powered for eight to ten hours by two rechargeable nickel metal hydride 9-volt 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 1/2 x gain and 6 and 1/2 x gain but that can be changed if you want anything from 1x to 12 X and finally source input that can be anything with a three and a half millimeter jack or even an adapter using the o2 amp is simple no drivers or anything just turn up the volume of your source so 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 and up it can also draw your attention to deficiencies in other parts of the pipeline that you never noticed before low-quality 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 not always cracked me up the files 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 DAC solution built into your PC is still terrible then you'll need a DAC you can get a sound card or you can get an integrated unit that's designed to perfectly match the o2 amp the O DAC the second unit right here so this is the silver one the black ones just the amp contains the o2 amp and the O DAC within the same chassis it looks mostly the same other than that it shows off a different external finish in front nob 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 is applied the same principles of striving 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 OU DAC 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 one hundred and thirty dollars and two hundred and fifty dollars respectively which might sound like a lot but if you're a budding audiophile 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 file 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 IMS 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 5 v 5s 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 slash 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 audiobook when you sign up for a new membership they have over a hundred and fifty thousand audiobooks including salt sugar fat how the food giants hooked us by Michael Moss and salt a world history by mark Crowe Lansky 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 slash Linus for a free audiobook check it out liked this video if you liked it dislike it if you just liked it leave me a comment with your thoughts on the o2 don't forget about that discount code that you might find on the Linus tech tips form depending when you're watching this and as always don't forget to subscribe