[money4me247]

  I apparently won a pair of Oppo PM-2s, and was emailed directly by Oppo about an hour ago. So, it seems like it's up to whoever offered the prize to email the winners and get their info. 
 
I haven't had a chance to experiment with new phones in a while, so this will be excellent! 

omg. CONGRATS! i'm so jealous!!!
 

  When I heard it, it was just the opposite, I felt like the bass in recordings were better placed in 3D space than the other parts. This could also be due to the noise from the environment just washing out the details so I couldn't hear and judge them better. The HE-1000 needs a better listen. I think most of the headphones shown at the event, except some cases of closed ones and IEMs, could do a lot better without the event noise as well. 

This +10000. You can't really take too much away from subjective impressions during a meet. But really great to read all the differing opinions.

 

[figaro69]

  When I heard it, it was just the opposite, I felt like the bass in recordings were better placed in 3D space than the other parts. This could also be due to the noise from the environment just washing out the details so I couldn't hear and judge them better. The HE-1000 needs a better listen. I think most of the headphones shown at the event, except some cases of closed ones and IEMs, could do a lot better without the event noise as well. 

yep, point well taken.

 

[mulder01]

Would have loved to have been there, but what I've gotten from reading through this so far is that the new Mr Speakers Ether is pretty universally loved, the HE1000 and Yggy are dividing people and were perhaps a bit underwhelming but possibly due to the show environment and hype train.  Also that the new ALO portable looks freaking sweet.  
 
And this made me lol
 
Quote:

 
The sound was incredible almost to the point of creepy. I'm Chinese but my eyes didn't look Chinese while listening to these.

 

Could the production model of the Yggy possibly need that long to warm up?  I'm guessing you'd really just need to leave it switched on 24/7 to get the most out of it?

 

[Stillhart]

  Would have loved to have been there, but what I've gotten from reading through this so far is that the new Mr Speakers Ether is pretty universally loved, the HE1000 and Yggy are dividing people and were perhaps a bit underwhelming but possibly due to the show environment and hype train.  Also that the new ALO portable looks freaking sweet.  
 
And this made me lol
 

Could the production model of the Yggy possibly need that long to warm up?  I'm guessing you'd really just need to leave it switched on 24/7 to get the most out of it?

 
Schiit recommends 24-48 hours of warm-up.  A lot of the guys got them setup on Friday and left them on overnight.  I believe they sounded more open on Sunday after being on for longer and others mentioned the same impression.
 
And I agree that the combination of the hype train and the listening environment is a big reason for some of the mixed bag reviews.

 

[adamaley]

  It disgusts me to hear about people stealing at an event where most people are volunteering their time and equipment.
 
On a positive note-I brought my 13 year old son with me to his first audio show. He had a great time checking out all the gear and comparing the different headphones. In addition to the gear, he was fired up for the signature hunt and raffle. We waiting until the end of the day because he was really hoping to come home with something(in addition to the 2 free shirts he got from cool vendors). While we waiting for the raffle to start we started talking to another experienced Head-Fi'er who was also waiting. He thought it was cool that my son was getting exposed to all this great sounding stuff. Well, the raffle ended and neither my son or my card got picked for a prize. Coincidentally the guy we were talking to happened to win some IEM phones. He noticed the obvious disappointment on my sons face at the end of the raffle and decided to give the IEM's he had just won to my son. What an incredibly kind gesture coming from a fellow member we had just met. Of course my son was ecstatic and went home thrilled by the whole experience. A big shout out to the fellow Head-Fi'er(sorry I never caught your handle) that made my son's day!!! The majority of Head-Fi'ers are kind and giving people that share a passion for great audio.

My buddy and I saw this happen, and we thought it was the coolest thing too. 

 

[longbowbbs]

Back from CanJam then straight back on the road for work. The price of Vacation...
 
I do not have any amazing words of wisdom since show conditions are never great for detailed impressions. The crowd was fantastic with a ton of energy. So no way anyone is going to provide incredible and detailed impressions. I did enjoy some things enough to add them to the list of "Must listen to later".
 
I hope you all enjoy the pics....
 

ifi's retro system
 

ifi stack
 

Olasonic speakers from Japan
 

Small Olasonic stack from Japan
 

The new Exogal DAC (Ex Wadia guys)
 

King Sound Electrostats
 

Covalent Audio amp
 

Covalent amp with Synergistic mods
 

Ronnie the Creator of Covalent Audio
 

Noble Audio Prestige IEM's. Over 30 hours of hand work done on each shell!
 

Brannan from Noble Audio
 

Jimmy from Atomic Floyd UK
 

LH Labs Geek Out 2 Prototype. The Geek Pulse Infinity was here as well Terrific Sound!
 

 

The Terrace area
 

Drew Baird from Moon Audio. He brought a ton of gear as always!
 

Final Audio from Japan. Incredible hand made IEM's and headphone's
 

 

Oppo HA-2 portable amp
 

Oppo PM-1's and HA-1 amp
 

HA-2 and PM-3
 

Auralic Taurus Amp and Vega DAC with MrSpeakers new Ether flagship planars
 

Jason holding court at Schiit Audio. They brought the full line.
 

Astell & Kern AK240 and JH Audio Layla UIEM's $5k of portable gorgeousness
 

Bill-P had some incredible modded cans. I loved his LCD-2 mods!
 

Frank Cooters mind boggling 845 Electrostat amp and Power Supply
 

 

 

 

 

Cavalli Audio Liquid Gold
 

Liquid Lightning Tube Electrostat amp. Resolution Cantata DAC as a source.
 

MrSpeakers Ether
 

Geek Pulse Infinity in Old Case with LPS4 and MrSpeakers Ether. Wonderful!
 

 
 
 

Ether with Cavalli Liquid Gold and Auralic Vega Dac! This was one of the best for me.
 

The new Cavalli Liquid Carbon (Transportable) and Liquid Silicon portable fed by the
Hugo DAC. I concur with the comments they were fantastic. Affordable Cavalli? Can
You say those words together? You can now!
 

 

 

 

 

The Wells Audio Headtrip. $7000 of power and class. The best I have heard the Abyss
was with this amp and the Lampizator DAC they were using.
 

The more affordable ( 

 ) $3699 Wells Audio Enigma amp
 

Russ Stratton digging the Burson Audio gear.
 

Yours truly getting measured for UE11's at Ultimate Ears using the new United Sciences
Laser 3D scanning tool. No goo anymore at UE. Straight to 3D printing with 5 day
turn around!
 

 
 

Casey Hartwell from LH Labs on the left. Top to Bottom Amos Barnett (Currawong) and
Mike (Anaxilus) talking all things Geek.
 

The ALO Audio Studio 6 amp being fed by a Sony HAP-Z1ES. This is a Top of the mountain
HD-800 amp.
 

Fritz Audio's terrific bookshelf speakers
 

 

First ever listening appearance of the new Wilson Sabrina speakers. $16k of Wow!
 
 
 
 
 

Questyle was here in force with their terrific HP amp along with their complete line of 
other electronics. The new QP1 and QP1 Pro DAPS are soon to be available at
$599 and $899 respectively
 
 

 

 

Chuck from 1964 ears was showing off their A12's with the new ADEL hearing protection
technology.
 
 

The new (and stunning) HiFiMan HE1000's and matching amp
 

 

Darin Fong "Out of your head" experience. Who needs surround sound?
 

Auralic had the Taurus amp, the Vega Dac and their incredible streamer in the house.
 
 
 

Schiit Ragnarok and Yggdrisil with the MrSpeakers Ether...Wait? Where is the Ether?
It is on my head of course! One of my top combos for the show.
 

 

Amos Barnett (Currawong) and myself enjoying CanJam. Great times with Amos!
 

 

grace had their full line of Dac/Amps. Super friendly folks and great sound.
 

 

JH Audio Layla's or Angie's with your AK120MKII?
 

Chord HugoTT in Silver
 

or Black?
 

Out in the wild now, the Audeze EL-8's in both open and closed types
 
 

Frank Iacone with the Audioquest Nighthawk headphones. Nearly ready for release.
 

Skylar Gray on the right. The head pf the Nighthawk project for Audioquest.
 
 

The Ayre Codex headphone amp and DAC
 

 

Dual Mono Questyle stack
 

 

Purrin's Schiit Yggdrissil DAC near his special Eddie Current amp. Lot's of Theta gear 
present as well.
 

Woo Audio WA5 with the Ether's
 

Ether's with the big Schiit stack.
 

Auralic, Cavalli Audio and MrSpeakers.....

 

Cavalli Audio Liquid Crimson hybrid amp
 

Cavalli Audio Liquid Glass with HD800's and Alpha Prime's
 

 

Headamp and their awesome Blue Hawaii Electrostat Amp and GSX-Mk2 Amp
 

 

 

Woo Audio
 

Drew Baird of Moon Audio on Left talking to Frank Iacone from Headphone.Guru at
Moon Audio's "packed to the rafters with awesome gear" table
 

Kim from MIT  with their new VERO custom cables
 

 

Vinni Rossi and his extraordinary LIO modular pre-amp/Amp/HP Amp/ Phono Amp/ DAC/Integrated...........Whew!
 
Which module did you want? 10 year warranty! 30 money back on any module. Plug and play
 
I may have to get one.....
 

Did I mention capacitors? The electronics never touch the wall power.
The capacitors regulate everything.
 
 
I hope you enjoy this as much as I did being there and meeting everyone. The community is awesome and as always I needed one more day than the event lasted to do everything I wished I could have done or seen.
 
A BIG HIGH 5 to Ethan, Warren, Jude, Joe, Andre and everyone else from the Head-Fi team for a fantastic job well done!
 

 

 

[santacore]

My buddy and I saw this happen, and we thought it was the coolest thing too. 

 
It really was fantastic and made the whole day for him. I came home from work today and found him wearing his new "Oppo" t-shirt. My wife said he had been listening to his new headphones all day. Awesome!! Next step, I will have to dig out one of my old amps for him to try.

 

[johnman1116]

so who are the raffle winners?

also will the videos of the seminars be uploaded?
Hugo was muy impressive. $_$

 

[adamaley]

   
It really was fantastic and made the whole day for him. I came home from work today and found him wearing his new "Oppo" t-shirt. My wife said he had been listening to his new headphones all day. Awesome!! Next step, I will have to dig out one of my old amps for him to try.

The look on his face was priceless. In light of the reports of theft that occurred that day, something like this is even more significant.

 

[dallan]

It really was fantastic and made the whole day for him. I came home from work today and found him wearing his new "Oppo" t-shirt. My wife said he had been listening to his new headphones all day. Awesome!! Next step, I will have to dig out one of my old amps for him to try.

Hey, you went?! Darn I missed you John.

 

[santacore]

Hey, you went?! Darn I missed you John.

Yeah, very last minute decision. I thought I was working both weekend days, but at the last minute was able to get Sunday off. I was hoping to run into you, but didn't see you. I ended up have a fun time hanging with my boy.

 

[Pazz]

Meanwhile, another CanJam held in the area.
 
I'm curious though, are there still videos waiting to be uploaded? I feel like there's a shortage of them at the moment, as I remember there were a bunch of people filming stuff, or at the very least taking pictures.
 
EDIT: Never mind, I forgot this is still day one of post-CanJam SoCal 2015. Feels like it's been ages already.

 

[abernardi]

How do you guys find the time to post SO MUCH so quickly????  It was a wonderful show, thanks to everyone who put so much time and love into this thing!
 
Far and away the best system to my ears was Jeff Wells' Headtrip amp/Lampi DAC/Abyss headphones, OMG .  And the less expensive Enigma amp (which he's renaming because of all the other products out there carrying that moniker) was a very close 2nd.  I can only say that system showed me that, yes indeed, headphones are for real and not just a less expensive substitute for an audiophile speaker system.  If you missed him, I'm pretty sure he'll be at Newport.
 
Of course Frank Cooter's electrostatic amp with the STAX was also incredible, though I think I liked the amp he brought to the previous CanJam just a little better.
 
I posted early in this thread I was wanting to sell my LCD-2.2's because I just can't listen to that overly rich Audeze sound signature any more, it's like I'm developing a real aversion to it!  Well, I have now decided to keep them since I heard Bill P's modded pair, which I will try on mine.  His mod totally tamed them and without that bloat in the bottom, they become very detailed and engaging.  That was the big surprise for me at the show.
 
The other surprise was how I could not find an IEM I could love.  One just sounded worse than the next to me.  I've been doing my daily walks with an inexpensive pair of HAVI b3 Pro 1's and they just work, it's all there.  There's nothing offensive about this IEM and I can listen for hours.  Obviously it's not super detailed or holographic, etc.  But with all these high end IEMS, it seemed the higher the price went, the more congested they sounded.  It was like the sound was fighting to get out of these things.  There were a few exceptions from Atomic Floyd, and I loved this guy's enthusiasm, he's really trying to do things right and I can't wait to see how he does.  There was a lot to like about his product.  Similarly, I liked the RHA T10i.  The bass had a fantastic growl to it, but it overwhelmed the rest of the presentation for me.  But they were a great couple, came in all the way from Scotland for the show, and they were very open to the feedback.  I guess the search continues on that.
 
As others mentioned, it was very difficult to really listen critically to anything, so it was especially hard to tell how good the Yggy sounded, or the Ether, or the HE-1000.  Though the Cavalli Carbon and Silicon were no brainers, they made themselves clearly known as excellent, even with the high noise level of the room, go figure.  And the HE-560 still sounds just right to me.
 
The Enigma Dharma hybrid cans and the Athena amp was very good, though I wasn't wowed by the Dharma.  I particularly liked the Athena amp with the HD-800's, which is a headphone I'm usually not crazy about, but this was an excellent match.
 
The oBravo headphones were of particular interest to me because my speaker system is built around a Heil type AMT.  These headphones also use a folded ribbon AMT which is kind of pasted onto the back of a dynamic driver.  I think the designer's name was David Teng, forgive me if I'm wrong on that, but I liked him immediately because of his dedication to the product and to improving it.  He had three models and they all clearly exhibited the magical qualities of an AMT, but unfortunately, to my ear, the tuning was off on all of them, and differently in each.  There was a giant V in the middle that needs to be addressed.  If I understood him correctly, he said he didn't actually put a crossover into it, but that the AMT kicks in at about 1.5Khz.  I'll be watching out for improvements on this because if he can get it right, I think it could compete very well with the electrostatics.
 
Speaking of electrostatics, every time I listen to the King headphones with their tube amp, I think, wow, this is perfect, I have to get these.  And then as the show goes on, my enthusiasm wavers and I end up taking a pass.  A friend at the show said he wasn't crazy about them because he felt they were slow.  I thought, how can an electrostatic be slow?  But now as I think about it, they are kind of tuned that way, just a touch sluggish, or something.  Maybe they're rolled off a little?  I don't know, I'd be interested in what others have to say about them, because their initial impression for me is always, yep, that's it and then it fades...
 
Some great portable amps too from ALO, WOW, that tube amp, I don't know if I liked the sound or the looks better.  And I liked the offerings from Peachtree and Oppo very much too.  The Oppo with those new P3's had GREAT synergy.  I think the best sounding portable rig though was the Sony stack, the new flagship DAP, amp and MDR-Z7 headphones, wow.
 
I was kind of on a quest to see if I could find something that would let me use my iphone as a source and still sound good, and was pleased to see a lot of portables were taking the digital out via the lightening connector, like the Centrance, which sounded good and several others.  I also brought along the little HRT iDSP DAC/Amp to play with and Warren lent my his Cozoy Astrapi DAC/Amp for comparisons.  I was disappointed initially by both frankly.  There was a marginal improvement with both with the HRT adding more gain and a little more detail, but had a very slight artificial quality I couldn't quite put my finger on, but not dissimilar to that slight over sharpening I hear in most Sabre DACS.  The Cozoy was more natural sounding, but I was actually getting LESS gain from it than going straight out of the iphone, and the HAVI's need a little bit more power than I was getting.  The Cozoy was by far better looking and easier to use however.  Also, I have to say the HRT is growing on me as I've been using it for a few days now, but the jury is still out.
 
Oh, and I did spend some time with the Codex, but it was only "OK" to my ear.
 
And lastly, I LOVED what I heard at the Auralic table.  I'm so lusting after the Aries streamer and that Taurus/Vega combo is right up there as one of the best for me.  
 
It was great to hang with a bunch of you guys and meet a lot of new people.  That's it for now...

 

[Stillhart]

I've been working on my impressions and I'm over 5000 words so far.  I'm going through the vendor list in alphabetical order and giving my thoughts on everyone that I visited.  
 
But I need to get to bed.  I'll keep working on it and hopefully have something ready to post tomorrow.  

 

 

[Spiderman]

I am laughing at all these posts about the aurender girl, anyway what happened with Mike I did he end up posting the picture? Also it sucks that people took the opportunity to steal things with everyone being so incredibly kind sharing their equipment, especially those headfiers that shared their set ups. One thing that did annoy me was that people were tripping on the cables and almost yanked off the headphones it almost happened like 3 times when I was there Saturday, you should watch your feet when you are around extremely expensive equipment. As for impressions I would say the best one was the hd 650 and lyr 2, it sounded incredible I wasn't such a big fan of the ether or the he-1000, I am unsure if it was the source but I tried various songs I wasn't that impressed especially given the price tag.