BOBOVR A2 Headphones for Quest 2

I've been a fan of BOBOVR since I bought their original halo style head strap.  I had replaced the original with the M2 which has a magnetic mount battery on the rear of the strap which counterbalances the weight of the Quest 2.

A few weeks ago I was hunting for new headphones to use with the Quest 2, and I'm glad I had waited to do so, because the A2 had been announced around that time.  I put in my order and just received it today.

Packaging

I was surprised to see the battery warning on the box, I didn't realize these had to be charged.

It's presented nicely in the box, but too much waste for my liking.  Each component has it's own box and plastic wrapping.

Setup

After moving everything, I had the left and right mounts & speakers, an additional set of ear cups, some spacers, an audio cable, and a small USB cable.

The mounts are simple to install, just slide over the front of the BOBOVR M2 strap.

The headphone cups are magnetic and I was able to quickly pop off the on ear and replace with the over ear style which I prefer due to no pressure on my ears.  I would say on ear is useful if you need to hear your surroundings while in VR.  Over the ear reduces the ambient room sounds quite a bit due to the thick padding.

After hooking the audio cable between both headphones, I then hooked up the enclosed USB C cable to my external battery to charge.  You can see in the photo above that if I remove the cable, I could plug it directly into the headset to charge as well.

I ended up switching to the M2 battery cable so that I could move the headset around while it was charging the A2 headphones.

Once charged, I can move the cable from the A2 back into the Quest 2 for extended battery life of the headset itself.

I'm not sure what the limitations of USB power are, but it would have been nice to have 2 USB C ports on the A2, one for the M2 battery pack to connect to, and then use the shorter cable to connect from the A2 to the Quest 2 itself.

Usage

On the top of the left speaker mount is the on/off switch and a mode button which cycles between 4 sound effect modes:

• Standard - Sounds like most headphones.
• Bass - Boosted bass, I think it sounds a bit muffled.
• Cinema - This one is nice, it tends to widen the sound (hard to explain, you'll have to repeat some audio and cycle through each mode).
• Game - This sounded similar to standard, I couldn't really discern what was different about it. I think the bass may be slightly deeper but overpowering like Bass mode is.

When switching between modes, a voice will tell you which mode you're not using which is handy.

If you need to mute the headphones, you can rotate the earmuffs up parallel to the strap and it will auto mute. Handy for when you need to take a phone call or talk to someone.

I found it doesn't work well with the over the ear earmuffs due to their size.

Turning off the headphones will play an "exit" jingle.

Conclusion

Overall, I'm really impressed with these, the magnetic earmuffs are great, definitely a feature other companies should follow.

It's also nice to have a set of headphones that works with my M2 headset strap vs the old 3D printed mounts, and Vive DAS audio headset that I used for my "Frankenquest"  Quest 1 headset.

As a VR Developer, I'm constantly taking my headset on and off throughout the day, so dealing with a separate pair of headphones was a no-go for me.  It's just too much effort for my workflow: put on the headset, then the headphones, and when taking it off, remove the headphones first, then the headset.

So if you want a nice all in one solution, I think you'll be pleased with the BOBOVR A2 Headphones.