CanJam NYC 2023 Impressions Thread (February 25-26, 2023)

[ku1185]

Some photos!

lol I'm in these photos!

 

[Benesyed]

lol I'm in these photos!

haha I hope that's a good thing and that you aren't in witness protection!

 

[Relaxasaurus]

Some photos!

Loved the Torinos! Which models are pictured here?

 

[Sebastien Chiu]

Back safe and sound in Los Angeles.

Thank you, everyone, for a beautiful show and all the love you gave the Headphones.com booth. Our design team appreciates it and will hear all the continued love, as the arrangement was a feat!

Of course, even though my favorite moments of the show were interacting with you all, I have to give shout-outs to a few pieces of gear.

-FiR's Radon 6.
-Elysian's Diva.
-Jerry Harvey's upcoming Pearl.
-Subtonic Tempest.
-Vision Ear's Elysian and Pheonix.
- ZMF Atrium Closed & Caldera.

And to these brands for the extended hospitality and friendship throughout the weekend: @zach915m / Bevin / ZMF, @EffectAudio / @JordonEA, @Jack Vang, @bogdan belonozhko , @Eric Chong, @Vision Ears, @MusicTeck, @CartrKellr, and Joseph Mou of MMR/Jomo.

These are all worth a mental note in your brain when you get the next opportunity to listen to them.

And, of course, last but not least, a big thank you to @joe, @warrenpchi, and the rest of the Head-Fi team for your support of my endeavors. I appreciate it, and you all deserve *multiple* rounds of applause for pulling this show off.

If this is where we are now, imagine where we'll be in five as a community and industry! Here is to the future together.

Photos to come soon see you in Singapore!

 

[Benesyed]

Loved the Torinos! Which models are pictured here?

No idea, I did not actually get to try them! Next CanJam!

Back safe and sound in Los Angeles.

Thank you, everyone, for a beautiful show and all the love you gave the Headphones.com booth. Our design team appreciates it and will hear all the continued love, as the arrangement was a feat!

Of course, even though my favorite moments of the show were interacting with you all, I have to give shout-outs to a few pieces of gear.

-FiR's Radon 6.
-Elysian's Diva.
-Jerry Harvey's upcoming Pearl.
-Subtonic Tempest.
-Vision Ear's Elysian and Pheonix.
- ZMF Atrium Closed & Caldera.

These are all worth a mental note in your brain when you get the next opportunity to listen to them.

And, of course, last but not least, a big thank you to @joe, @warrenpchi, and the rest of the Head-Fi team for your support of my endeavors. I appreciate it, and you all deserve *multiple* rounds of applause for pulling this show off.

If this is where we are now, imagine where we'll be in 5 as a community and industry! Here is to the future together.

Big thanks to you! I don't know if you remember helping my friend try and navigate what he did or did not like about certain headphones. I believe in the end what you thought he would like the most, the Rossons, were indeed his favorite!

 

[Sebastien Chiu]

Big thanks to you! I don't know if you remember helping my friend try and navigate what he did or did not like about certain headphones. I believe in the end what you thought he would like the most, the Rossons, were indeed his favorite!

I certainly do! Glad I was around the Headphones.com booth to help you guys. Happy belated birthday to your friend, and I hope he finds his way to Head-Fi and future shows.

Yes, I figured when he couldn't stop bopping his head with the RAD-0s (they're RAD!) - I hope he grabs a pair one day!

 

[dougms3]

Loved the Torinos! Which models are pictured here?

Its the centauri, mistral and pulsar aluminum respectively.

Centauri and pulsar aluminum really stood out for me. Outstanding offerings from spirit torino.

 

[Sebastien Chiu]

Here's a peek at some of my favorite photos I took from the event. Colored as such because the room proved to be incredibly hard to work with the 50 shades of blue, yellow, and random spots of dark and light.

And last but not least, our team!

 

[Skyediver]

What a great CanJam! Huge appreciation to all the folks at Head-Fi who put in so much work to coordinate this effort. It's amazing to see how much CanJam has changed over the last few years. Good stuff. For me, it was a pretty mellow event, at least compared to CanJam SoCal last year. I enjoyed that too, but felt like I was trying to see/hear/check-out way too much and wiped myself out due to that. This time, I enjoyed the more casual pace and taking more time at each stop. There will be other CanJams, thankfully.
One definite highlight was my chance to listen to the amazing Sennheiser HE-1 despite missing the first day signup window since it just slipped my mind. At the end of the first day I stopped by the booth to ask if there was any possibility to get a listen, and the rep did mention that there are a surprising number of no-shows, and that was my best chance. Sure enough, the first group had two no-shows and I got my shot. Even better, I'd be going up for the 30 minute listening session with Water Cooler buds @HiFiHawaii808 , @goldwerger and @Zachik . Super Cool!

Once we were brought up to the room, there was some minimal instructions, but essentially we decided up our listening time and got to it. Normal reactions commenced from all of us, mainly populated with utterances such as "Wow!" or "I've never heard that song sound THAT GOOD!", coupled with silly, ear-to-ear grins.

We had seven minutes of listening time, a chance to try several songs and just drool, then get angry we didn't have more time. Joking aside, it was a fantastic experience, one I'm glad I got to have.

 

[569424]

I've listened to the HE1 for hours in different, controlled environments. One event was a private booking specifically to listen to the HE1 (among 2-3 other setups) for as long as I wanted to. So I think I understand the cans perfectly well. Sennheiser isn't magic. They are constrained by the same physics and budget limitations that affect all E-stats. The driver itself is slower than ribbons, and the sub-bass doesn't compare well to planars that are driven to their absolute limit. They are also less spacious than some competitors including the Shangri-La.

Have you tried the Abyss TC with a serious speaker-grade 300b implementation? Have you tried the 009S on an MSB Select stack? The Mysphere with a Mass Kobo 406? If not, then I don't think you have the proper context to evaluate the HE1 to systems that match or exceed its price. I wouldn't go into the internal DAC - using a 9018 sabre is fairly inexcusable at $10k, let alone $50k. The marble is nice though.

Anybody can say anything online.

I've listened to the HE1 for hours in different, controlled environments. One event was a private booking specifically to listen to the HE1 (among 2-3 other setups) for as long as I wanted to. So I think I understand the cans perfectly well. Sennheiser isn't magic. They are constrained by the same physics and budget limitations that affect all E-stats. The driver itself is slower than ribbons, and the sub-bass doesn't compare well to planars that are driven to their absolute limit. They are also less spacious than some competitors including the Shangri-La.

Have you tried the Abyss TC with a serious speaker-grade 300b implementation? Have you tried the 009S on an MSB Select stack? The Mysphere with a Mass Kobo 406? If not, then I don't think you have the proper context to evaluate the HE1 to systems that match or exceed its price. I wouldn't go into the internal DAC - using a 9018 sabre is fairly inexcusable at $10k, let alone $50k. The marble is nice though.

and thats why an objective measuring bar is needed. (Abyss has left the chat) Or a survey with hundreds of participants. Your experience doesn’t override that of hundreds of people who to them the HE1 is the best they have ever heard. You might think your experience is the standard but really, you are one of the exceptions

 

[Skyediver]

Oh, one other cool, quirky experience: I plop myself down at the HifiMan booth to listen to the Susvara, and just randomly start playing Gregory Porter's Liquid Spirit, only to have the gent next to me sharing the same source started smiling. I tease him that he must be a really big Gregory Porter fan, only to have him say he was actually one of the engineers that worked on that very album. How random and cool is that!?! We chatted briefly and he shared he's actually scheduled to be in the studio with Gregory next month, and I asked him to pick his favorite track to play for us to hear on the Susvara's. A very nice moment.

 

[goldwerger]

Once we were brought up to the room, there was some minimal instructions, but essentially we decided up our listening time and got to it. Normal reactions commenced from all of us, mainly populated with utterances such as "Wow!" or "I've never heard that song sound THAT GOOD!", coupled with silly, ear-to-ear grins.

Oh man, didn't even notice you taking this picture I was so overwhelmed with the blissful music. That was just extraordinarily special. Thanks so much for capturing this moment

Such a wonderful privilege to share this experience with you, @Zachik , and @HiFiHawaii808 - this entire CanJam for me was all about shared experiences and making new friends.

See you all next time...!!

 

[Nomax]

What a great CanJam! Huge appreciation to all the folks at Head-Fi who put in so much work to coordinate this effort. It's amazing to see how much CanJam has changed over the last few years. Good stuff. For me, it was a pretty mellow event, at least compared to CanJam SoCal last year. I enjoyed that too, but felt like I was trying to see/hear/check-out way too much and wiped myself out due to that. This time, I enjoyed the more casual pace and taking more time at each stop. There will be other CanJams, thankfully.
One definite highlight was my chance to listen to the amazing Sennheiser HE-1 despite missing the first day signup window since it just slipped my mind. At the end of the first day I stopped by the booth to ask if there was any possibility to get a listen, and the rep did mention that there are a surprising number of no-shows, and that was my best chance. Sure enough, the first group had two no-shows and I got my shot. Even better, I'd be going up for the 30 minute listening session with Water Cooler buds @HiFiHawaii808 , @goldwerger and @Zachik . Super Cool!

Once we were brought up to the room, there was some minimal instructions, but essentially we decided up our listening time and got to it. Normal reactions commenced from all of us, mainly populated with utterances such as "Wow!" or "I've never heard that song sound THAT GOOD!", coupled with silly, ear-to-ear grins.




We had seven minutes of listening time, a chance to try several songs and just drool, then get angry we didn't have more time. Joking aside, it was a fantastic experience, one I'm glad I got to have.

Nice Pictures

I could post 5 tracks here where an ..... or a.....or a.... etc etc starts to distort at over 95db.
I would like to invite everyone to show you this at the High End
Most reviewers take slow tracks without low frequency parts that don't challenge the transducer at all.

NOMAX

PS.the HE1 brings not so fast into the wavering...even with over 100db not


Since many have also asked me by message what my set up would be if I did not have the HE1
Stealth with the Zähl (soundstage knob on level one) and as source the Lotoo Mjolnir

 

[wazzupi]

Its the centauri, mistral and pulsar aluminum respectively.

Centauri and pulsar aluminum really stood out for me. Outstanding offerings from spirit torino.

Agreed the two best headphones they offer imo.

 

[FritzS]

In any case, I have enough tubes



NOMAX

Ps.lol

A lot of tubes, but really needed? SE802S are selected ECC802S - Telefunken, Tesla, JJ, etc.

SENNHEISER HE1 TUBE REPLACEMENT/HOW TO REPLACE THE TUBES