CanJam SoCal 2019 Impressions thread
Jun 23, 2019 at 3:50 AM Post #76 of 438
Got this panorama shot as the show was closing yesterday.

DSC_5532-Pano.jpg
 
Jun 23, 2019 at 4:12 AM Post #77 of 438
+ Booth peeps. Lots of helpful friendly people around. Props for putting on a fun show.
+ Noble KHAAAAAN!'s bass. Big fan of ex1000 bone dry bass character, and Future Sonics club-woofer bass, but KHAN shows another way... idk how to describe, weirdly tactile tar ball bass. Was too distracted to notice the other frequencies, I think there were mids and highs. There weren't not mids and highs.
+ Campfire Andromeda, living up to reputation. Also, surpisingly comfortable (Comet/Atlas shell's very nice as well).New stock cables also very nice.
+ AK/JH Billy Jean. Wasn't expecting to like these, but very pleasantly suprised. Smooth, lush, slighlty dark sound IMO. Went nicely with the jazz & solo/chamber classical in my test tracks, can imagine slotting these in rotation w/ portapro for kicking back & relaxing on coffee breaks.
+ ZMF Atticus. Looking for some closed cans and was particularly interested in Eikon. Maybe my ears were too tired at this point but Atticus' struck me as more cohesive for all-rounder listening. Lovely build & comfort.
+ Utopia.
+ Audio Technica M50x. Haven't listend to an M50 in a looong time. The Pro-Ject table was using them & it was a little bit like coming up for fresh air after listening to 20 different headphones. Also thought Pro-Ject's S2 Digital dac/amp + streamer stack looked nifty.
= Grado PS2000e. Excellent $600 headphones.
= Campfire IO. Look even better in-person.
= Business parks.
- Stellia. Excellent $600 headphones.
- Clocks. Evil time thieves.
 
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Jun 23, 2019 at 4:22 AM Post #78 of 438
Sean Olive is a hero working with Floyd Toole and Kevin Voecks for Revel loudspeakers ... if you are there.... listen to this man!

Should be an honor to listen to him.
 
Jun 23, 2019 at 4:42 AM Post #79 of 438
My apologies in advance if this isn’t the correct thread for this request:

If anyone has a Modhouse Argon mk2 or mk3 and doesn’t mind letting me demo, please let me know. I’ll be present tomorrow.
 
Jun 23, 2019 at 10:23 AM Post #80 of 438
+ Booth peeps. Lots of helpful friendly people around. Props for putting on a fun show.
+ Noble KHAAAAAN!'s bass. Big fan of ex1000 bone dry bass character, and Future Sonics club-woofer bass, but KHAN shows another way... idk how to describe, weirdly tactile tar ball bass. Was too distracted to notice the other frequencies, I think there were mids and highs. There weren't not mids and highs.
+ Campfire Andromeda, living up to reputation. Also, surpisingly comfortable (Comet/Atlas shell's very nice as well).New stock cables also very nice.
+ AK/JH Billy Jean. Wasn't expecting to like these, but very pleasantly suprised. Smooth, lush, slighlty dark sound IMO. Went nicely with the jazz & solo/chamber classical in my test tracks, can imagine slotting these in rotation w/ portapro for kicking back & relaxing on coffee breaks.
+ ZMF Atticus. Looking for some closed cans and was particularly interested in Eikon. Maybe my ears were too tired at this point but Atticus' struck me as more cohesive for all-rounder listening. Lovely build & comfort.
+ Utopia.
+ Audio Technica M50x. Haven't listend to an M50 in a looong time. The Pro-Ject table was using them & it was a little bit like coming up for fresh air after listening to 20 different headphones. Also thought Pro-Ject's S2 Digital dac/amp + streamer stack looked nifty.
= Grado PS2000e. Excellent $600 headphones.
= Campfire IO. Look even better in-person.
= Business parks.
- Stellia. Excellent $600 headphones.
- Clocks. Evil time thieves.


You left out one major thing.

+ Noble booth candy. :yum:


Last day of the show, always a little sadness knowing its going to be over later on.
 
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Jun 23, 2019 at 11:04 AM Post #82 of 438
Heading out there today hoping to make it early to avoid the crowd. Did anyone find any off hotel parking to avoid the fee?


Being a Sunday you might be able to park off the property and walk, there are places not far that being closed might not be a risk of towing. But its not a given. The further away you parked would make it much safer from a possible tow.
 
Jun 23, 2019 at 12:10 PM Post #84 of 438
Was only able to spend 1 day at CanJam SoCal 2019 and missed some things that I didn't even know about. But I wanted to give some love to some gear that isn't being mentioned.

The Michael Jackson "You Rocked My World" awards:
  • Jomo Audio Trinity - holy cow ( I'm Indian so it's okay to say that). It takes a nuclear reactor to power these things (my Shure SHA900 was at 22/25 on High gain mode) but it was the best sound I've ever heard from an IEM. I was about to buy them on the spot but I decided to be careful and listen to as much as possible at the show before being so impulsive. Came back at the end of the day and happily purchased a pair.
  • SMSL Dac D2/Headphone Amplifier P1/Beyerdynamic Tesla T1 - The Tesla T1 is not a headphone that people have been talking about since the likes of Sennheiser/Focal/MrSpeakers have been crushing it with some amazing offers. And I actually use to own a Gen1 Tesla T1 years ago. But this system was FANTASTIC. I couldn't believe the smoothness and clarity and fullness. From a system that you can buy new for $3500! The P1 (and D2 I think) won't be released till mid September but I'll be buying the P1 the moment it comes out.
  • RAAL SR1A - Wow. Fantastic. Another purchase I wanted to make on the spot. But I already have a speaker system at home and can't justify $3500 for a headphone that I can only use at home (I was/am in the market for a mobile solution). But hot **** - this is like having a world class speaker system in your place without all the hoop-jumping that comes with getting into the speaker game. I think it requires a great speaker amplifier so that makes it difficult for a lot of HeadFi'ers to buy it.
The Weeknd "I Can't Feel My Face" awards ( awesome gear that was highly enjoyable)
  • Sony IER-Z1R - The praise being heaped on this headphone is well deserved. It was my 4th favorite IEM at the show but it sounded great. The recessed mids are the only thing holding it back.
  • Moondrop TOTL - I didn't get a chance to write down the model number but these $2000 IEMs that are available in customs sounded awesome. Had I not been floored by the Jomo Audio Trinity, I would have bought these due to their ability to be built as a custom
  • AAW Shozy X Pola 39? - Not sure I wrote that correctly. And the naming could use some work - it's like typing Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. But these sounded wonderful. I think I'm loving this electrostatic driver trend in the IEM market.
  • Focal Utopia/Focal Stellia - You've probably heard this a million times but yea - they're awesome. I was trying to figure out which one I would want to buy but it was like Sohpie's choice.
  • Woo Audio WA11 - Must be powered by the Tesseract because this thing has a lot of power for being a portable device. They wouldn't let me open it to verify. Only thing preventing purchase is all its inputs/outputs are balanced and none of my reference gear has balanced connections.
  • Benchmark Dac 3/HPA4/Audeze LCD-XC - The Benchmark guys are awesome and this system sounded fantastic. I had heard their DAC paired with an Innous music server at Axpona this year and was underwhelmed. But this sounded like an endgame system. I just realized that I might have a thing for closed headphones.
  • Acoustyx R220/Teac HA-P5 - Gotta put this combo up. The IEMs were on sale for $200 and I'm just floored by how good they sounded for $200. I will probably buy these as a good workout headphone since they are built like a tank.
  • Headamp/Rosson - All the classics were there and the new GSX Mini sounded great with the new Rosson headphones. And those headphones are STUNNINGLY beautiful works of art. There was this one that looked like Carrara marble that Michelangelo himself could have carved - the artist not the ninja turtle.

Shout out to HeadFi for putting on this event and it being awesome year after year. So many awesome people in the headfi community and discussing notes with other HeadFiers about their favorites is one of the best parts of CanJam.
 
Jun 23, 2019 at 12:38 PM Post #85 of 438
I spent about 90 minutes on Saturday at the show and although this was my first CanJam and I did not know what to expect, I had a great experience. The only negative was the ridiculous price for parking. So instead of paying for hotel parking, I parked very far away in another lot and paid far less.

The things I was most impressed by at the show were the design of the Schiit record player and willingness of all the booth staff and vendors to take the time to explain their products and pay attention to questions from relative noobies like me. It was very cool that I could try all these headphones that I have read about. It may be because I'm used to the sound of Grados, but the best sound experience came from several different models of Grados I tried. But I did like the HiFiMans and Audezes too. There are a lot of great models now in the affordable range. In terms of wireless, the best was really the Grado GW100. I did not try any IEMs or electrostatic sets.

It was also awesome to meet folks like Jason Stoddard from Schiit. Very nice guy and super knowledgable about both manufacturing and designing audio and electronics. I'm excited to see some of the stuff we talked about in upcoming products from his company. They will solve UX and business (and gaming) problems with innovation at a reasonable price. It's easy to solve most problems with an unlimited budget but really hard if you want to make your stuff affordable. I truly appreciate that kind of engineering. Check their stuff out.
 
Jun 23, 2019 at 1:16 PM Post #86 of 438
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time and trouble to post their impressions this weekend.
Disappointed not to be there in person but it has certainly whetted my appetite for London next month!
 
Jun 23, 2019 at 1:38 PM Post #87 of 438
Are the Grado HF-3 only being sold at CanJam?

I believe they’ll post some details after CanJam is over, but I guess people at CanJam are getting first dibs? They had a QR code at the show you could use to access an exclusive link. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to share it here...

While I was there, I talked with John Grado about it, and he said probably 1000-2000 will be made like the first two Grado HF headphones, although they may ship out in different batches. I don’t think 1000-2000 people bought it yet, but I think they should :p
 

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