Headphone Amplifier / DAC

For a lighter, Oppo's HA-2 Headphone Amplifier / DAC ($299.00 USD) is just about right. It's got terrible stitching, like a Laguiole, or a Roots, we'd say, yet has a nice black, leather fold. The Oppo logo itself is a bit Zippo - we noticed that with the HA-1. The device itself is nice, like an Apple iPhone 4 in complexion. It won't eat into your black budget. Just the right thickness, fit, and fine finish. You know you're dealing with something fine, like a Nikon or a Cannon device.

We'd prefer if it were a music player, however. There's no need for yet another device to carry along as you walk. It's suited for in-flight entertainment, ideally, where it would partner well with an Etoymotic ER-4S ($299.00 USD), and be good kit for your long-haul. It will protect your player's (gl)ass by virtue of it's leather fold, but that doesn't un-necessitate the use of a cable, which will make it clunky - should you use it in your hand, or pocket. Pocket pool. It's a bundle to play with.

By the nomenclature, you'd say the ideal user of the HA(-2) to be a Hell's Angel. They're a wondeful biker club, and we can see their patch on the HA-2, ideally. Like us, they'd likely want to remove the Oppo label. In mythology, the Opponent is Satan. There's something too trendy about the Oppo logo. Too hip. There's something quite fine for use in its technology and appearance, however.

Like the Oppo's HA-1, it's a fine-sounding appliance, in and of itself. Those preferring a headphone of moderate quality like the Adele (actually quite low) may find it soothing - to their sense of self worth - it's a much nicer device than that.

It's reassuring to see manufacturers other than Apple introducing moderately lower priced consumer electronic equipment that offer premium quality at a not insignificant price, yet also not out of reach of the average American consumer. Like the Gintel ring, it's fine, without a premium.

The average American consumer (and household) may have lost the American Dream, but there's always Spumoni Ice Cream. That is, there is always there is always something to sell, and something to say. The Oppo HA-1 might have it's device, one day.

Let's reinstate the HA-1.

JP 2015

This device very much encapsulates the category, in being the premium device of the segment.

This very much applies to the HA-2.

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