Audience OHNo Plus Headphone Cable Review – Connect, Power And Deliver
Audience OhNo Plus is a $699 USD pair of headphone cables designed as a custom set for us, but available for order after contact with Audience. The company continues to offer some of the best support, and most interesting product set, allowing for more customization and more interesting products tailored for your needs. We will also include sharp comparisons between Oh No Plus and Audience Studio One Headphone Cable (950 USD) all throughout the review.
Introduction
Audience is a high-end cable manufacturer from the USA best known for creating the cables for many studios across the world. They have a unique approach in the audiophile world, creating cables which are low mass instead of high-mass, basically being the ones to make a versatile, flexible cable, based on the idea that a higher mass would inherently be less transparent, as current travels along the edges of the cable, and not through the cable itself.
As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases, and using the purchase links in my reviews helps me maintain this website and Youtube Channel. Audiophile-Heaven has no Ads and our Youtube Channel has no midroll ads, and our work is supported by Affiliate Links and Donations. Huge thanks to Audience for providing the sample for this review, in exchange for my honest opinion.
Product Link
Official Link – https://audience-av.com/cables/ohno/ohno-headphone/
Build Quality – Design
We have reviewed a pair of Audience OhNo cable already, the OhNo III for speakers, and the inner construction of the OhNoPlus is very similar so I will copy over the technical description from the OhNo III Speaker review, from this point forward until the subjective usage part of this review.
Audience OhNo series of cables are designed to keep the price in the entry-level but achieve performance worthy of the high-end. Despite the idea that OhNo would be a word in English, this is just a coincidence, as the OHNO series of cables are actually named after Dr. Atsumi Ohno who invented the method of manufacturing mono-crystal wires, a method of producing wires without the crystalline barriers typically found in conventional wires.
Copper typically exhibits a crystalline structure with thousands of crystals per meter, so as audio signals move along this structure, energy is lost at every crystalline juncture. Ohno copper is a single crystal copper, providing an unobstructed path for the audio signal, and the purest transmission possible. Audience uses XLPE cross linked polyethylene for the insulation of the Ohno cable, and although this is an older cable, it still is very much relevant to the world and can still be purchased as an excellent option for your speakers.
You can order the Ohno III cables with both spade and banana connectors, and the version we got today is with those fork-like connectors. My idea was that this should place less strain on both the connectors of the speakers and those of the amplifiers, and to some degree this is correct, but some amplifiers do not accept this type of connector. Also, important to keep in mind is that Audience does not use thick connectors and flashy colors, as they prefer the experience of using their cables to be revealed by your ears and sonic experience rather than visual design.
Subjective Usage
Audience OhNo Plus is a different experience from the speaker cables the company makes. To be honest, I still use the Audience AU24SX as my main speaker cables. I absolutely love the experience, but AU24SX is actually more flexible and softer than the OhNo series. This is a pretty important point, because although OhNo Plus has exceptionally high-end connectors, it is not very flexible. The Y split is quite thick and heavy so it pulls a bit on the cable, making the headphones fall on their most vertical position on your head.
This makes the Audience OhNo Plus slightly hard and springy, which makes it conduct a bit of microphonic noise, and although it is flexible enough for desktop usage, it is stiff and would only work for longer lengths, as it starts to settle more and sit nicely on your desk. This being said, the jacket is high-end, and the whole cable looks prettier than most alternatives.
Sound Quality
Pairings – I ordered the Audience OhNo+ in a fairly standard configuration, with 3.5mm connectors at the headphone side, and 4.4mm jack connector at the source side. This means that I’ve been able to use it with HIFIMAN Susvara Unveiled, HIFIMAN HE1000 Unveiled, Fosi Audio i5, HarmonicDyne Baroque, HIFIMAN Isvarna, and SJY Audio Horizon. While Audience OHNo + works well with all of them, it is better with heavier headphones that have a bit of resistance to the natural pull of the cable, like Fosi Audio i5.
Overall Signature – Sonically, Audience OhNoPlus is unique in its presentation, it delivers a warm, vivid presentation that gives lower midrange a bit of extra punch and presence, but also a bright and airy treble to contrast it. There’s a high detail and amount of information revealed in sound, with excellent emotion and presence for both female and male voices. It is a fairly universal sounding headphone cable, works well with the signature of most headphones, including Isvarna and Susvara Unveiled, while offering a beautiful midrange that makes me want to listen to more music. Studio One is a superior cable for headphones in resolution, and vividness, but a bit more neutral in tuning. Studio One is even more springy and more solid physically, so I feel like OhNo+ is a great alternative if you want a smoother, warmer, more organic sounding cable that’s more relaxing to use.
Tonality – Audience Oh No Plus is a vivid, engaging sounding cable with a mostly transparent tuning, except for a slight warmth addition in the midrange, which gives voices more volume, more presence, true for both male and female voices. It emphasizes rock, metal, EDM and even classical, giving more lateral width and more volume to voices. I find its signature to be extended in the bass, it delivers a powerful punch down to 20 Hz, but also extends nicely up to 20 kHz, with no roll-off at either end, in presence or strength. In fact, it is not neutral, but extended at both ends. This means that you can expect all elements of a song to shine and reveal through the sound.
Dynamics And Textures – As with most cables, Audience Oh No Plus will have its own texture and dynamic style, with the best way to describe it being as vivid, dynamically wide and uncompressed, and with an organic, present but not fatiguing texture. Organic is a word I use to describe textures that are naturally revealed, fun and vivid, without feeling forced or too emphasized, so OhNo+ has a fast instrument response but not a dry or a fatiguing texture style, it is great for all music styles from rock to rap to EDM to classical, as it has a very slight rounding effect for textures, gives music beauty in detail, gentleness in resolution and makes things sound obvious in the “why didn’t I think of that” style rather than pointing it out to you forcefully.
Soundstage – With a wide soundstage, all Audience cables have a wide staging, but OhNoPlus differs from Studio One in the staging style, OhNoPlus is warm and naturally wide, with a slight scattering effect while Studio One is a tight, precise sounding cable, which has a very precise instrument separation, slightly smaller soundstage. OhNoP sounds wider, a bit more airy, but has less focus on instrument separation, it is more balanced for most music styles and a bit better for classical, symphonic and most acoustic instruments as it renders a more natural presentation for them, at the cost of everything sounding a bit more blended together. It clearly is a different style and technical performance is not absolutely everything, at the end of the day you have to make a choice between having the most cutting-edge separation , or a more musical and blended presentation as OhNo Plus offers.
Value and Conclusion
Audience OhNo Plus is a good deal if you get it configured for your needs, length, connectors, but Audience can even make you an AU24SX headphone cable, so if the cost is not an issue, I would rather recommend choosing that one as it is more flexible and less springy.
At the end of the day, Audience OhNo Plus is a great cable for headphones sonically, it offers unparalleled precision and a natural, organic sounding midrange, with a full bass and bright, airy treble, and a fully recommended purchase, being a unique experience compared to everything that I’ve reviewed so far as far as headphone cables go.
PROs
- Clean and organic sound with excellent bass extension
- Bright and airy treble
- Organic, vivid midrange
- Resilient and made really well from Speaker cables
- Low coloration and high transmittance
- Excellent support from the company and you can configure it for your needs
Cons
- It is rather springy and heavy, so I would recommend trying AU24SX for a headphone cable for a softer feeling
Product Link
Official Link – https://audience-av.com/cables/ohno/ohno-headphone/
--- Please remember to stay safe, and always have fun while listening to music!---
- If you have a dime to spare, please donate, and help us! It would make the day brighter for me and my wife-
Full Playlist used for this review
We listened to more songs than those named in this playlist, but those are excellent for identifying a sonic signature. I recommend trying most of the songs from this playlist, especially if you’re searching for new music! The playlists are different for Spotify, Tidal and Youtube, and based on the songs I enjoy and are available on each!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_cjBXGmwSHSdGcwuc_bKbBDGHL4QvYBu
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5J3oloz8Riy9LxEGenOjQ0?si=979ba4f082414be7
https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/330fd544-8e5b-4839-bd35-676b2edbb3d5
--- Contact Us ---
