- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
- Posts
- 8,329
- Likes
- 4,651
Fujiya Headphone Spring Festival 2017
29th - 30th April 2017
Fujiya holds 4 shows a year, two smaller one-day "potaken" shows in winter and summer, and two larger two-day festivals in spring and autumn. This past weekend Fujiya Avic held it's Spring Festival in its usual venue Sun Plaza, Nakano, Tokyo. With the larger shows such as this, exhibitors from overseas and from across Japan convene in Tokyo to share their newest offerings to audio enthusiasts.
Aside from being able to try new products, these shows are always fun as it's an excuse for distant friends with a common hobby to meet up, catchup up, chat, and at time just have a meal and drink together. There is so much more to this hobby than just listening.
Tomoe Ma - always there to warmly welcome and greet us at the shows.
1) Meeting Jerry Harvey at Starbucks
As usual a small core of us Head-Fiers meet up at Starbucks in the morning before the show opens to have a cuppa coffee, or breakfast and to show of our fanciest gear. This time we gate crashed @ExpatinJapan's (Damon's) meeting with Jerry Harvey who was showing Damon his Lola's. The above photo is Jerry Harvey's personal Lola beautifully designed and crafted by his team.
Naturally he had a few universal demo Lolas for us to try - and even one cable made by Drew Baird of Moon Audio terminated with the Pentaconn 4.4mm balanced for us Sony NW-WM1A/Z owners. That allowed us to hear the Lola to it's fullest potential balanced out of the Sony DAP.
At least to my ears this was one earphone with a sound signature that departs from the usual earlier Siren series. I enjoyed the Lola's so much that over the next 2 days I kept going back to Jerry's table to listen to them over and over again.
2) Brise Audio Cables
These are quickly becoming my favourite cable brand. I wrote a little report about this company here.
Okada-san and Watanabe-san of Brise Audio were looking at revamping their introductory STD001 range and came up with the cables above. They are 4-wire that's slimmer/thinner and more flexible. Brise Audio hasn't even chosen a name for this new range they've debut at the show. The price is expected to be less than ¥20,000.
Brise Audio also showed off their new 8-wire UPG001Ref cable pictured above. This cable isn't in full production yet however 5 were made available at the Fujiya show for purchase for a cool ¥105,800. I own the 4-wire UPG001 regular as pictured below (inner cable whilst outer is the 8-wire UPG001Ref).
The Brise Audio cables for headphones and Line out interconnects are all high quality copper based. The philosophy of Brise Audio is shielding to prevent external interferences. The UPG001Ref (either 4-wire released in March, or this new 8-wire released in May) have their Murakumo level shielding at strategic parts of the cable.
I did a brief 10 min comparison between my 4-wire UPG001 regular (non Ref) and the new 8-wire UPG001Ref and promptly went to the Fujiya sales desk to buy one! Yes they're expensive but I was highly impressed with the results it's produced.
The 8-wire UPG001 cable is considerably thicker and stiffer than the 4-wire UPG001. It is somewhat more microphonic too however, for its sonic qualities, I'm well prepared to accept some sacrifices.
Brise Audio spared no expense to setting up a high end listening station with SFZ network transport, DAC and transport feeding into an Oji Special BDI-DC44 B amp. The setup above is well in access of USD$110,000 where the cables behind the devices alone are ~USD$81,700.
Brise Audio also had a suite of headphones (not pictured) for listeners to demo on their different cables.
3) Sensaphonics Japan
I swung by the Sensaphonics Japan table again to talk to them about the sleeves for the KSE1500. Talking to Ooyagi-san, the sleeves forthe KSE1500 can be made but can't say how it'll impact the sound. In general the ear canals for the Japanese audience are somewhat smaller therefore there is less advertisement/promotion of the sleeves in Japan as it would in the US.
Ooyagi-san though did introduce to me their Move-Interlock. The material used is softer than that's used by Sensaphonics overseas. The Move-Interlock is a Japan-only Sensaphonics offering.
4) OJI Special
OJI Special has been around for quite some time and for some of the more veteran Head-Fi users may remember OJI Special taking RSA portable amps and modifying/improving over them. Now though OJI special has made some pretty high end top-tier headphone amps such as the BDI-DC44B R-Tuned in the Brise Audio exhibit, and on their own table the BDI-DC24B-G Limited II.
The BDI-DC24B-G Limited II actually had a special at the Fujiya show for a cool ¥780,800. Had I been single, I would have jumped on it. I fear the likes of such products is pushing my personal audio to a new level.
5) Stax
So, for a little preview, a small group of us got invited to the Stax office on Friday 28th April before the Fujiya Headphone Spring Festival. We were given the tour of Stax new office. I'll write up a separate article about that later this week.
The Stax SRM-T8000 new flagship is one of the major announcements of the Fujiya Spring festival this year. Stax hasn't had a flagship in a long time. The last great Stax amp was probably the SRM-T2 back in the 90's. This SRM-T8000 was announced earlier in the week and has made it's show at the Fuiya Festival. The release date is planned to be mid June. Stax has completely revised this amp - it doesn't even share the same format as the SRM-727/007/323 series, and it's a much more expensive amp.
Sonically to my ears this amp gave the bass that many craved from the SR-009's. In fact in a very crude analogy, it the SR-009 more like the SR-007Mk1s. Across the frequency response were well controlled. Especially for Japanese customers where the likes of BHSEs, Electras, Liquid Lightnings, etc aren't easy to come by, the SRM-T8000 is much welcome to the Japanese Stax aficionados.
6) MASS-Kobo
Masuda-san of MASS-Kobo showed off his prototype 405 pre-amp, and 406 balanced headphone amp. The 405 pre-amp (currently?) accepts 7 inputs. Unfortunately someone else was listening to the amp whist I took that photo. I did not get the chance to give that rig a listen.
7) 64Audio
Someone asked me to swing by the 64Audio table and there I gave their Tia Fourte a shot. The earphone to my ears had a warm sounding signature which to me would suit for rock. I would have personally preferred a little more treble extension.
Sadly I didn't try the other 64Audio earphones on display.
8) Unique Melody
Stephen Guo of Unique Melody and I go way back - in fact it was through him that I first had my Shure SE500's hacked and made into a CIEM - which was my intro into Head-Fi.
Back in December '16, Unique Melody showed off its ME.1 prototypes. It had 2 different tunings. Now they've settled on a 3rd and (I believe?) final design of the ME1 with a new signature. How this has changed from the earlier Dec '16 offering is there are two magnets as opposed to one-sided. This has made the ME.1 easier to drive.
Listening to the ME.1s, they definitely sound more "planar" to me than the earlier ME.1 prototypes. For those who do like that kind of character should give these pair of earphones a listen.
The Unique Melody ME.1s are ported too for ear protection as pictured above.
I was taking a picture of a poster and Stephen was asking why I was taking a photo of a photo. He mailed me the pix above of the ME.1 breakdown.
9) Mr. Speakers
Everytime Dan Clark swings by Tokyo he has fancy new toys we die to get our grubby hands on. This year is no exception. I had Dan's older Alpha Dogs a few years back but his newer Ether products weren't so suited to my tastes.
This time though, Dan brought the Aeon and boy these were great to listen to. In fact it's unbelievable for the sound it produced for just shy of $800. This headphone was further able to demonstrate its scalability when driven by a more powerful desktop amp like the Headamp GS-X MkII. I have to say this was a very pleasant and welcoming surprise from Mr.Speakers.
Early adopters who are prepared to forgo fancy packaging should be getting their Aeons soon as it seems they're shipping as early as this week.
Another is the long awaited electrostatic headphones from Mr. Speakers. This has been in development for well over a year. It's finally coming close to production. These were driven by Headamp's Blue Hawaii Special Edition and it's an improvement from last year's prototype.
10) Grado
Grado debut it's PS2000e headphone at the Fujiya Spring Festival this year. Apparently it's so new there were no specs associated with it.
I normally don't listen to Grado headphones but these seem fine sounding. Possibly it was later in the day, I felt the earcups were a little too warm around my ears.
The earpads are moved here.
11) Hifiman
After a long absence, Fang Bian made a show at the Fujiya Headphone festival presenting Susvara. These headphones sounded good - full sounding signature. Aesthetically it's an improvement over the HE1000 series too.
As Hifiman has an office in Japan, I hope to pop by there some time in the next week or two to give these pair of headphones a better listen - it's piqued my interest.
And here's how it looks like off @Currawong (Amos') head. I love his hair, don't you??
12) Tago Studio
Tago Studio is a local Japanese brand. They're also based in Takasaki, Gunma prefecture which is where Brise Audio is from. Tago Studio had their T3-01 on display. Overall it was a nice pair of closed headphones for a reasonable asking price of ¥50,000. They're easy to drive. My only criticism is that the bass bleeds a little into the midrange.
End of Day 1 29th April 2017
29th - 30th April 2017
Fujiya holds 4 shows a year, two smaller one-day "potaken" shows in winter and summer, and two larger two-day festivals in spring and autumn. This past weekend Fujiya Avic held it's Spring Festival in its usual venue Sun Plaza, Nakano, Tokyo. With the larger shows such as this, exhibitors from overseas and from across Japan convene in Tokyo to share their newest offerings to audio enthusiasts.
Aside from being able to try new products, these shows are always fun as it's an excuse for distant friends with a common hobby to meet up, catchup up, chat, and at time just have a meal and drink together. There is so much more to this hobby than just listening.
Tomoe Ma - always there to warmly welcome and greet us at the shows.
1) Meeting Jerry Harvey at Starbucks
As usual a small core of us Head-Fiers meet up at Starbucks in the morning before the show opens to have a cuppa coffee, or breakfast and to show of our fanciest gear. This time we gate crashed @ExpatinJapan's (Damon's) meeting with Jerry Harvey who was showing Damon his Lola's. The above photo is Jerry Harvey's personal Lola beautifully designed and crafted by his team.
Naturally he had a few universal demo Lolas for us to try - and even one cable made by Drew Baird of Moon Audio terminated with the Pentaconn 4.4mm balanced for us Sony NW-WM1A/Z owners. That allowed us to hear the Lola to it's fullest potential balanced out of the Sony DAP.
At least to my ears this was one earphone with a sound signature that departs from the usual earlier Siren series. I enjoyed the Lola's so much that over the next 2 days I kept going back to Jerry's table to listen to them over and over again.
2) Brise Audio Cables
These are quickly becoming my favourite cable brand. I wrote a little report about this company here.
Okada-san and Watanabe-san of Brise Audio were looking at revamping their introductory STD001 range and came up with the cables above. They are 4-wire that's slimmer/thinner and more flexible. Brise Audio hasn't even chosen a name for this new range they've debut at the show. The price is expected to be less than ¥20,000.
Brise Audio also showed off their new 8-wire UPG001Ref cable pictured above. This cable isn't in full production yet however 5 were made available at the Fujiya show for purchase for a cool ¥105,800. I own the 4-wire UPG001 regular as pictured below (inner cable whilst outer is the 8-wire UPG001Ref).
The Brise Audio cables for headphones and Line out interconnects are all high quality copper based. The philosophy of Brise Audio is shielding to prevent external interferences. The UPG001Ref (either 4-wire released in March, or this new 8-wire released in May) have their Murakumo level shielding at strategic parts of the cable.
I did a brief 10 min comparison between my 4-wire UPG001 regular (non Ref) and the new 8-wire UPG001Ref and promptly went to the Fujiya sales desk to buy one! Yes they're expensive but I was highly impressed with the results it's produced.
The 8-wire UPG001 cable is considerably thicker and stiffer than the 4-wire UPG001. It is somewhat more microphonic too however, for its sonic qualities, I'm well prepared to accept some sacrifices.
Brise Audio spared no expense to setting up a high end listening station with SFZ network transport, DAC and transport feeding into an Oji Special BDI-DC44 B amp. The setup above is well in access of USD$110,000 where the cables behind the devices alone are ~USD$81,700.
Brise Audio also had a suite of headphones (not pictured) for listeners to demo on their different cables.
3) Sensaphonics Japan
I swung by the Sensaphonics Japan table again to talk to them about the sleeves for the KSE1500. Talking to Ooyagi-san, the sleeves forthe KSE1500 can be made but can't say how it'll impact the sound. In general the ear canals for the Japanese audience are somewhat smaller therefore there is less advertisement/promotion of the sleeves in Japan as it would in the US.
Ooyagi-san though did introduce to me their Move-Interlock. The material used is softer than that's used by Sensaphonics overseas. The Move-Interlock is a Japan-only Sensaphonics offering.
4) OJI Special
OJI Special has been around for quite some time and for some of the more veteran Head-Fi users may remember OJI Special taking RSA portable amps and modifying/improving over them. Now though OJI special has made some pretty high end top-tier headphone amps such as the BDI-DC44B R-Tuned in the Brise Audio exhibit, and on their own table the BDI-DC24B-G Limited II.
The BDI-DC24B-G Limited II actually had a special at the Fujiya show for a cool ¥780,800. Had I been single, I would have jumped on it. I fear the likes of such products is pushing my personal audio to a new level.
5) Stax
So, for a little preview, a small group of us got invited to the Stax office on Friday 28th April before the Fujiya Headphone Spring Festival. We were given the tour of Stax new office. I'll write up a separate article about that later this week.
The Stax SRM-T8000 new flagship is one of the major announcements of the Fujiya Spring festival this year. Stax hasn't had a flagship in a long time. The last great Stax amp was probably the SRM-T2 back in the 90's. This SRM-T8000 was announced earlier in the week and has made it's show at the Fuiya Festival. The release date is planned to be mid June. Stax has completely revised this amp - it doesn't even share the same format as the SRM-727/007/323 series, and it's a much more expensive amp.
Sonically to my ears this amp gave the bass that many craved from the SR-009's. In fact in a very crude analogy, it the SR-009 more like the SR-007Mk1s. Across the frequency response were well controlled. Especially for Japanese customers where the likes of BHSEs, Electras, Liquid Lightnings, etc aren't easy to come by, the SRM-T8000 is much welcome to the Japanese Stax aficionados.
6) MASS-Kobo
Masuda-san of MASS-Kobo showed off his prototype 405 pre-amp, and 406 balanced headphone amp. The 405 pre-amp (currently?) accepts 7 inputs. Unfortunately someone else was listening to the amp whist I took that photo. I did not get the chance to give that rig a listen.
7) 64Audio
Someone asked me to swing by the 64Audio table and there I gave their Tia Fourte a shot. The earphone to my ears had a warm sounding signature which to me would suit for rock. I would have personally preferred a little more treble extension.
Sadly I didn't try the other 64Audio earphones on display.
8) Unique Melody
Stephen Guo of Unique Melody and I go way back - in fact it was through him that I first had my Shure SE500's hacked and made into a CIEM - which was my intro into Head-Fi.
Back in December '16, Unique Melody showed off its ME.1 prototypes. It had 2 different tunings. Now they've settled on a 3rd and (I believe?) final design of the ME1 with a new signature. How this has changed from the earlier Dec '16 offering is there are two magnets as opposed to one-sided. This has made the ME.1 easier to drive.
Listening to the ME.1s, they definitely sound more "planar" to me than the earlier ME.1 prototypes. For those who do like that kind of character should give these pair of earphones a listen.
The Unique Melody ME.1s are ported too for ear protection as pictured above.
I was taking a picture of a poster and Stephen was asking why I was taking a photo of a photo. He mailed me the pix above of the ME.1 breakdown.
9) Mr. Speakers
Everytime Dan Clark swings by Tokyo he has fancy new toys we die to get our grubby hands on. This year is no exception. I had Dan's older Alpha Dogs a few years back but his newer Ether products weren't so suited to my tastes.
This time though, Dan brought the Aeon and boy these were great to listen to. In fact it's unbelievable for the sound it produced for just shy of $800. This headphone was further able to demonstrate its scalability when driven by a more powerful desktop amp like the Headamp GS-X MkII. I have to say this was a very pleasant and welcoming surprise from Mr.Speakers.
Early adopters who are prepared to forgo fancy packaging should be getting their Aeons soon as it seems they're shipping as early as this week.
Another is the long awaited electrostatic headphones from Mr. Speakers. This has been in development for well over a year. It's finally coming close to production. These were driven by Headamp's Blue Hawaii Special Edition and it's an improvement from last year's prototype.
10) Grado
Grado debut it's PS2000e headphone at the Fujiya Spring Festival this year. Apparently it's so new there were no specs associated with it.
I normally don't listen to Grado headphones but these seem fine sounding. Possibly it was later in the day, I felt the earcups were a little too warm around my ears.
The earpads are moved here.
11) Hifiman
After a long absence, Fang Bian made a show at the Fujiya Headphone festival presenting Susvara. These headphones sounded good - full sounding signature. Aesthetically it's an improvement over the HE1000 series too.
As Hifiman has an office in Japan, I hope to pop by there some time in the next week or two to give these pair of headphones a better listen - it's piqued my interest.
And here's how it looks like off @Currawong (Amos') head. I love his hair, don't you??
12) Tago Studio
Tago Studio is a local Japanese brand. They're also based in Takasaki, Gunma prefecture which is where Brise Audio is from. Tago Studio had their T3-01 on display. Overall it was a nice pair of closed headphones for a reasonable asking price of ¥50,000. They're easy to drive. My only criticism is that the bass bleeds a little into the midrange.
End of Day 1 29th April 2017
Attachments
Last edited:
.
