 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 3.5mm audio jack in favor of their proprietary reversible USB implementation, here is my review of the Audizy Sign, one of the first lightning headphones on the market. And woven into my thoughts on this product are going to be my thoughts on the shift towards lightning, 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. TunnelBear is the simple VPN app that makes it easy to browse privately and enjoy a more open internet. To try TunnelBear 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 DesignWorks influence. Those guys really get around, hey? Not that I'm criticizing BMW Group's offshoot industrial design and consultancy house's 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 house 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-ear 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 treble 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 in expensive, difficult-to-power products or from obscure brands like, well, Odyssey. Though I guess the way that they've stormed into the mainstream is a testament to what they've done with a 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-ear headphones, and the Signs sound great. They don't isolate ambient noise particularly well, but they 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 performance is 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 play back 24-bit, 96 kHz 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 conversion to an analog 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. 1. Removing the jack saves some space inside the chassis of the phone. This image from iFixit shows you about how much. 2. 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 audio 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 too. 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. 2. 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 4. 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 9-5 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 s*** you need to get anything done. Back to the conclusion for the signed headphones though, with the Cypher 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 19,000 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 ProTech 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 swivel top precision driver, their precision ESD safe tweezers, their wider variety of plastic opening tools and picks, their suction cup for display removal, their 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 $69.95. 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, if 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. 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