[BunnyNamedCraig]

Part 4 of 4


^ those birds were beautifully-colored when they fly


On the final day, Sunday, I mostly just got around to doing other things I had meant to do on Saturday.

I stopped by the AMR/iFi Audio booth in the outer corridor of CanJam to say hello to the folks there. I spent a lot of time catching up with @Cotnijoe there. Fun fact, if you didn't know already, AMR is the parent company of iFi Audio, and a lot of the technology in iFi products are trickled down from AMR.

This DAC was on display at the AMR area of the booth. It's supposed to look like a Ferarri and reminded me a lot of the Light Harmonic Da Vinci DAC.





^ Of course, they were also displaying their Pro-series of equipment, which includes the Pro iDSD, Pro iCan, and Pro iESL energizer.

If you watched the Ask Me Anything video in the previous post, you would have seen Thorsten from AMR/iFi as one of the panelists. He was at the AMR/iFi booth today and I got a chance to talk with him. He's super fun to talk to if you ever get the opportunity. We talked about some of the engineering aspects of the iFi products and why they're designed the way they are. He even pulled out a Marriott notepad and started drawing circuit diagrams on it to help explain things. Seriously!

After all of that, I didn't actually get a chance to listen to any of the gear at their table. Time was running short for the day.





I also attended the CanJam seminar on Sunday afternoon, which, like the Ask Me Anything seminar, had a nice variety of panelists in the in-ear earphone industry.


They didn't quite answer the questions directly, so that was a bit disappointing. It was an interesting seminar nonetheless. I personally haven't seen representatives from Westone, Ultimate Ears, and Shure all in the same room before.





After the seminar, I went back to the main CanJam ballroom area and I wanted to check some things off of my "to listen" list.

I stopped by the InEar booth to try their Prophile 8 and Stage Diver 5 in-ears. Holy cow was I blown away by the Prophile 8's sound! If you're familiar with the Ultimate Ears Reference Remastered, it sounds a bit like that with a slightly boosted sub-bass and a treble that's not as rolled-off sounding. With the additional options to boost the bass, treble, or both, this makes it a much more versatile in-ear to customize your sound on-the-go. I tried both the bass and treble switches on and I think that particular sound profile would be great for listening to if you're in a noisy environment like the train or busy city.

It is also very interesting that they offer two shell sizes for people: small and standard. Usually in-ear earphones with multiple drivers tend to be too big to fit comfortably in my ear, but the small variant fit really nicely. Additionally, both sizes of the shells are formed into triangular-shaped wedges, which makes gripping it extremely ergonomic when putting them in or out of your ear. Also, these particular in-ears are 3D-printed and finished with a matte-black finish, which is even cooler! Two thumbs up from me.


I also tried their StageDiver 5, and it was still quite good. It didn't quite have the same detail and instrument separation as the ProPhile 8, but that's to be expected. It sounded more V-shaped to me in comparison, more than the ProPhile 8 with the bass and treble switches on. One of the InEar representatives showed me the different types of wood enclosures you can get with the StageDiver 5. The ebony wood one was simply stunning!







I stopped by the Swan Song Audio booth to say hello to the representative there. I attended one of his talks last year at the "speaker tower" where he described how the big Swan Song Audio speakers worked with their vacuum tube power amplifier. I gave their White Swan DAC/amp system a try and it sounded okay to me. I'm not too familiar with the LCD-XC, so I didn't get a good baseline for how the DAC/amp sounds. The White Swan is basically a box that you can request to be customized, which is a novel concept. Want it to have XLR headphone outputs? You got it. Want it to have line-out outputs? No problem. Do you want it to have USB inputs? Sure. Do you want RCA line-out options? Will do!



^ at last year's talk





Next was Periodic Audio. I know a lot of people swear by the beryllium drivers. I honestly liked the magnesium drivers more. To me, the beryllium driver one had too much of a mid-bass hump that crept into the midrange, making it sound too thick and recessed. On the other end of the mids, the upper-mids sounded too shouty to me.

In contrast, the magnesium drivers had more bass quantity, but it sounded more like an elevated sub-bass to me, so the quantity didn't bother me so much. The midrange as a whole was good minus the upper-midrange/lower-treble area, which sounded sizzley to me. This didn't bother me as much as the shouty midrange of the beryllium drivers though since I know I can easily EQ that peak out.






It was near the end of the event by this time, so I rushed over to the Sony table nearby to give their in-ears a listen. Typically Sony doesn't have a house sound that I like so I had low expectations for their IER-M9 in-ear. I was pleasantly surprised though. It reminded me a bit of the Periodic Audio magnesium without as much bass and without as much of a sparkley sound, more on the bright side. I don't mind a bright midrange as long as it doesn't sound sibilant, and the M9 didn't. Compared to the Periodic Audio magnesium though, the instrument separation was much better-defined and the overall soundstage sounded more spacious. Ironically enough, the M9 uses magnesium for their super-tweeter driver too. Maybe my ears just like the sound from magnesium drivers, hahaha. I wouldn't mind picking up one of these again.


I was guessing the next in-ear was their new flagship since they had a blow-up display of its internals: IER-Z1R. To be honest, I wasn't a big fan of it. It had better instrument separation than the M9 and an even bigger sense of space, a more balanced-sounding sound signature overall, but sibilant to me, which as stated above, I can't really tolerate. I guess my ears must be off from the average though since pretty much every other impression I've seen for the IER-Z1R has been overwhelmingly posititive. At $2.3k, I'd give this a hard pass and I'd much, much, much rather invest nearly half of that amount into a ProPhile 8.


The Sony table also featured their newest DAC/amp with a screen: DMP-Z1. It certainly looks beautiful with the milled aluminum chassis and the gigantic customized Alps RK90(?). I couldn't really evaluate its sound because 1) It was connected with the MDR-Z1R which I'm not too familiar with, 2) they had a very limited selection of music in MP3 format. If you're displaying flagship products with a freaking HI-RES TM sticker on it, why are you using MP3?!?!? That's like what my non-audiophile friends would say as a joke: how's it sound with my MP3 music? Ugh...










At this point, the show was wrapping up and people were starting to pack up. I quickly went to the Benchmark booth to give their system (DAC3 and HPA4 amp) a try. I listened to it with my Clear and compared them with the Utopia. This was the first time I actually really enjoyed listening to the Utopia. That system made my Clears sound like mud, it was that eye-opening. I originally bought the Clear because I liked how it sounded next to the Utopia on various amps and I always found the Utopia to sound too bright for my tastes. Hearing the Utopia on this system didn't give me any of those vibes. I'll have to give their system another listen during a future CanJam event.





After most of the exhibitors had packed up their booths, jude and other folks from Head-Fi sat down and just talked for a good 2 hours about our impressions of things, as well as measurements of gear and other technical aspects. It's a lot of fun hearing others talk about their impressions, as opposed to reading them on the forums.

jude has a pair of Theoretica Applied Physics BACCH-BM in-ear binaural microphones that he's generously going to lend me soon, so I'm really looking forward to using those for some test recordings.

Speaking of measurements, here are the measurements of my Mobius from the Audio Precision room*:

^ those are the different DSP options for the Mobius with the 3D head-tracking off (1/3 octave smoothing, raw)


^ those are the "Music" and "Flat" DSP options for the Mobius with the 3D head-tracking on, and centered when it was placed on the ear simulator (1/3 octave smoothing, raw)


^ left/right channel tracking


^ impulse response for "Music" DSP, 3D head-tracking off


^ impulse response for "Music" DSP, 3D head-tracking on


^ level and distortion for "Music" DSP, 3D head-tracking off; -65 dB = 0.056% THD
https://www.ap.com/technical-library/more-about-thdn-and-thd/
https://www.ap.com/technical-library/more-about-harmonic-distortion-product-results/
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-thd.htm

* Just as a reminder, these are not 100% accurate since these were measured in a noisy room with speakers playing at volume 11 across the hallway





Anyway, I had to leave that evening to head back to the airport, so I said goodbye to everyone and took off. Of the RMAF events I've been to, I think this was the best one to date. I had a ton of fun at this event just going around and talking to folks from Head-Fi. Until next time, I'll see you guys on Head-Fi!








Thank you for taking the time to peruse through my CanJam at RMAF experience!

This has a fraction of the likes it deserves... Simply amazing show recap @miceblue!!!!

 

[Hansotek]

Yeah, if you've never been to a Canjam, @miceblue 's show report really gives you a feel for the whole experience!

Loved reading this today. Phenomenal job Mike!

 

[fzman]

This has a fraction of the likes it deserves... Simply amazing show recap @miceblue!!!!

True dat! And you are both great people-glad to know both of you and to get to spend time hangin' and dinin'

 

[NovaFlyer]

@miceblue Awesome writeup! Thanks for sharing.

 

[SoundHelmet]

On related question, the video link I post says between high, mid and bass, the high is too sharp on the Utopia. Now, on a pair of floor speaker, Focal uses Beryllium at its tweeters. How does it work w/ a pair of headphone? Does it still have high, mid & bass as 3 separate speaker inside? And that Focal put beryllium at the high inside the headphone?

Headphone use ONE full range drivers that produces everything. Speakers need multiple drivers because they need to project sound into an entire room. Small drivers can't push bass very far and big drivers will be more likely to break up at high frequency. So speakers need more than one driver . Headphones sit right next to your ear so one small driver can do it all.

 

[up late]

On related question, the video link I post says between high, mid and bass, the high is too sharp on the Utopia. Now, on a pair of floor speaker, Focal uses Beryllium at its tweeters. How does it work w/ a pair of headphone? Does it still have high, mid & bass as 3 separate speaker inside? And that Focal put beryllium at the high inside the headphone?

that is the reviewer's subjective opinion (which i and others don't happen to share) so don't take it as gospel. you should hear the utopia for yourself and form your own opinion of how it sounds to you. focal uses beryllium as the material for its tweeters in its high-end loudspeakers. focal chose to use the same material for the utopia's full-range driver because of its rigidity and light weight. there's plenty of information available about this on the interwebs and there are also threads dedicated to the utopia at this forum.

 

[Mediahound]

that is the reviewer's subjective opinion (which i and others don't happen to share) so don't take it as gospel. you should hear the utopia for yourself and form your own opinion of how it sounds to you. focal uses beryllium as the material for its tweeters in its high-end loudspeakers. focal chose to use the same material for the utopia's full-range driver because of its rigidity and light weight. there's plenty of information available about this on the interwebs and there are also threads dedicated to the utopia at this forum.

Also Jude, btw:

 

[miceblue]

I generally prefer the Clear to the Utopia too, which is why I bought it. Hearing the Clear next to the Utopia at the Benchmark booth though was an eye-opener for me.

I wish I could have heard the Elegia on the same setup too. I'm not a big fan of the PrismSound DAC/amps they were using at their booth.

 

[Mediahound]

I generally prefer the Clear to the Utopia too, which is why I bought it. Hearing the Clear next to the Utopia at the Benchmark booth though was an eye-opener for me.

I wish I could have heard the Elegia on the same setup too. I'm not a big fan of the PrismSound DAC/amps they were using at their booth.

Benchmark DACs tend to be like the Utopia, quite bright. At least that has been my impression.

 

[up late]

Also Jude, btw:

your point being?

 

[Soundsgoodtome]

@miceblue great documentary of RMAF!

 

[happy hopping]

I generally prefer the Clear to the Utopia too, which is why I bought it. Hearing the Clear next to the Utopia at the Benchmark booth though was an eye-opener for me.

I wish I could have heard the Elegia on the same setup too. I'm not a big fan of the PrismSound DAC/amps they were using at their booth.

So if they are about the same, who's going to buy Utopia that is several time the price higher? Focal got to justify the huge price difference for some legitimate reasons

 

[up late]

^ while they may seem "about the same" to you, there are significant differences between the utopia and the clear if you are judging them based on "the huge price difference" alone, which is what you appear to be doing. for example, the beryllium drivers in the utopia cost focal considerably more to produce than the aluminium/magnesium alloy drivers in the clear. so you could count that as one "legitimate reason". you could take the cost of the premium leather and carbon fibre materials used in the construction of the utopia into account as well, but i get the impression that you have already formed your opinion regardless. i hasten to add that i am not attempting to justify the cost of the utopia based on the bill of materials used in its manufacture, which (a) i don't have access to, and (b) would be a misguided exercise imo.

 

[elira]

So if they are about the same, who's going to buy Utopia that is several time the price higher? Focal got to justify the huge price difference for some legitimate reasons

The problem with very high end stuff is that you need to pair it with the proper equipment to get the best out of it. I’m sure the Utopía are better, at least in the eyes of Focal, but of course always there’s someone that disagrees. I wish I couldn’t notice the difference between cheap and expensive headphones, that way I would have more money.

 

[rkw]

On related question, the video link I post says between high, mid and bass, the high is too sharp on the Utopia. Now, on a pair of floor speaker, Focal uses Beryllium at its tweeters. How does it work w/ a pair of headphone? Does it still have high, mid & bass as 3 separate speaker inside? And that Focal put beryllium at the high inside the headphone?

Headphone use ONE full range drivers that produces everything. Speakers need multiple drivers because they need to project sound into an entire room. Small drivers can't push bass very far and big drivers will be more likely to break up at high frequency. So speakers need more than one driver . Headphones sit right next to your ear so one small driver can do it all.

The Focal Utopia has a single full range beryllium driver, but there many headphones that use more than one driver. For example, 1More has an over-ear headphone with 3 drivers and an in-ear headphone with 4 drivers. Some in-ear monitors such as from 64 Audio have as many as 18 balanced armature drivers.