fureshi
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2003
- Posts
- 2,535
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- 12
i've been meaning to put this together for a while now as i took my last trip to japan almost a month ago but i guess better late than never. i got pulled on a last minute trip to tokyo for work and after my meetings were over, i had a few days over a weekend in tokyo to shop and meet with friends and family so i thought that i'd share the shopping portion with you all.
it all started off in kyoto. my coworkers and i arrived late tuesday night and woke up early the next morning for an all day meeting with a supplier. after our meeting was over, we took the shinkansen to tokyo.
after two more days of crazy long meetings (typical japanese meetings???), i'm finally free and have some time to do a little bit of shopping the the few extra days in tokyo. luckily my hotel is pretty close to ginza and akihabara. my first stop is the sony showroom in ginza and the qualia store. the first level houses some bravia tv's showing HD videos.
mesmerized at the tv's and the incredible HD pictures, i realized that i was here mainly to see the qualia store on the 4th floor. i skip most of the other floors as they house random sony consumer products. the listening station that they have the 010 has a pretty decent selection of music. the source was an ES555 through an amp that i didn’t recognize. they were even nice enough to offer me tea while i was trying out the 010.
from ginza, it’s a short hop to akihabara on the yamanote line. on weekends, they close the main street off. even with that much extra space to walk around, akiba still feels crowded but at least it’s better than having to wait for crosswalk signals.
first stop in akiba is the crazy large yodobashi camera store that we built a short while ago. it’s basically like going to CES but housed in one building. talk about sensory overload! the entire store is crowded with shoppers, then there’s the random music and announcements that are blaring over the loudspeakers. finally there are the guys with the bullhorns trying to get you to buy things that are on special sale. after an hour there on my first trip to the store, i couldn’t take it and had to go outside for a while. this time around, i got smart and used my IEMs to block out most of the sound. here’s only a small portion of their mp3 player section.
are fuzzy faux fur jackets in this year???
so off in one of the main thoroughfares is this audio store. the name is something like 5555 audio but i can’t seem to remember the name exactly to save my life right now. here is the side wall. how many cans and amps can you spot?
the main wall houses even more high end cans, including stax and sennheisers, which you can audition. the front of the store had a wall of portable mid range headphones for audition with either your portable player or their's.
i think I must’ve sat there listening to the w5000 for at least 30 minutes. the finish of the wood is a lot darker in person than i thought they would be but the grain is still so beautiful. ah...someday...
so that’s about it for my one day of headphone shopping in Tokyo. unfortunately i didn’t get a chance to go to fujiya avic in nakano (even though it was on one of the stops to my aunt’s house) or some of the other shops suggested by other head-fi members but it was still fun roaming around akiba and having a bowl of ramen at jyangara. i won’t bore you guys with pictures of me and my relatives and friends.
it all started off in kyoto. my coworkers and i arrived late tuesday night and woke up early the next morning for an all day meeting with a supplier. after our meeting was over, we took the shinkansen to tokyo.
after two more days of crazy long meetings (typical japanese meetings???), i'm finally free and have some time to do a little bit of shopping the the few extra days in tokyo. luckily my hotel is pretty close to ginza and akihabara. my first stop is the sony showroom in ginza and the qualia store. the first level houses some bravia tv's showing HD videos.
mesmerized at the tv's and the incredible HD pictures, i realized that i was here mainly to see the qualia store on the 4th floor. i skip most of the other floors as they house random sony consumer products. the listening station that they have the 010 has a pretty decent selection of music. the source was an ES555 through an amp that i didn’t recognize. they were even nice enough to offer me tea while i was trying out the 010.
from ginza, it’s a short hop to akihabara on the yamanote line. on weekends, they close the main street off. even with that much extra space to walk around, akiba still feels crowded but at least it’s better than having to wait for crosswalk signals.
first stop in akiba is the crazy large yodobashi camera store that we built a short while ago. it’s basically like going to CES but housed in one building. talk about sensory overload! the entire store is crowded with shoppers, then there’s the random music and announcements that are blaring over the loudspeakers. finally there are the guys with the bullhorns trying to get you to buy things that are on special sale. after an hour there on my first trip to the store, i couldn’t take it and had to go outside for a while. this time around, i got smart and used my IEMs to block out most of the sound. here’s only a small portion of their mp3 player section.
are fuzzy faux fur jackets in this year???
so off in one of the main thoroughfares is this audio store. the name is something like 5555 audio but i can’t seem to remember the name exactly to save my life right now. here is the side wall. how many cans and amps can you spot?
the main wall houses even more high end cans, including stax and sennheisers, which you can audition. the front of the store had a wall of portable mid range headphones for audition with either your portable player or their's.
i think I must’ve sat there listening to the w5000 for at least 30 minutes. the finish of the wood is a lot darker in person than i thought they would be but the grain is still so beautiful. ah...someday...
so that’s about it for my one day of headphone shopping in Tokyo. unfortunately i didn’t get a chance to go to fujiya avic in nakano (even though it was on one of the stops to my aunt’s house) or some of the other shops suggested by other head-fi members but it was still fun roaming around akiba and having a bowl of ramen at jyangara. i won’t bore you guys with pictures of me and my relatives and friends.
