[kumar402]

This was my first time hearing the DCA Expanse and wow, those are a big step up over the stealth in my view. Fixing the dynamics issue I had previously and turning them into a SERIOUSLY good headphone. So good that @Danmellinger bought a pair about 30 seconds after listening!


​

Oh man I'm working hard to be in a position where I can make a decision to drop $4K on a headphone in 30s.
Envy

 

[wolfstar76]

This was a really good and informative interview!

Excellent recap, I had the same feeling "kid in a candy store" for my first ever CanJam.

 

[dougms3]

​

Woah, what cable is that?

The wire barely fits into that connector.

 

[iamoneagain]

Canjam SoCal this year was absolutely amazing and I have had a truly phenomenal week.
This is my first time going to Canjam SoCal (even though I lived in San Diego for a couple years!) and I am already incredibly excited for next year.

I'm not going to be making a video about this trip as for me, this was about spending time with friends who I very rarely get the opportunity to see, some of whom I've known for years but had not had the opportunity to meet in person before at all. So you'll have to excuse the mediocre photo quality as I just took my phone with me.

Pre-Canjam:
Myself, @skedra and his girlfriend Magda took an 11 hour flight across the pond for the event, and we stayed with a bunch of friends at a house on the beach in Newport rather than getting hotel rooms, with another 5 of us in another house just up the road.



Not a bad view to wake up to in the morning! And watching the sun going down over the ocean each night was a real treat too.



We stayed in SoCal together for a week, spending a few days either side of the event doing some stuff together, including going to see Kendrick Lamar and the Big Steppers tour on Day 1, and hiking up to the Hollywood sign on Day 2.





And of course, spending plenty of time on the beach, having some great food, and being a bunch of crazy audiophiles, enjoying some of the awesome gear that had been brought along.







@Danmellinger received the first HM1 unit in the US on the friday, so we were also able to spend some proper time with that over the next few days.


@SpeleoFool also upheld his title as 'King of Roon', outdoing his previous camping setup:

And instead constructing what I think technically qualifies as the world's largest DAP. Fully portable and on wheels, with a built in roon core, display, optional battery backup and both tube and solid state outputs! (Disclaimer: May not actually fit in your pocket)



Canjam Day 1:

At last though canjam day 1 arrived. And unfortunately I personally did not get to spend all that much time trying out gear as I spent the entirety of the morning speaking with people and catching up with friends. Time flew so fast that seemingly as soon as we got in, we were heading out for lunch again.

On the way back I had just enough time to go to Headamp's private room to try out their excellent (and wonderfully quiet!) setup upstairs away from the noise of the show floor.



This was my first time hearing the DCA Expanse and wow, those are a big step up over the stealth in my view. Fixing the dynamics issue I had previously and turning them into a SERIOUSLY good headphone. So good that @Danmellinger bought a pair about 30 seconds after listening!
Definitely something I'm looking forward to spending more time with and hopefully reviewing in future.

Once that was done, I headed to the "Digital Audio 201" talk given by @Rob Watts which was excellent. And afterwards had the fantastic opportunity to chat with him for a good hour and a half over coffee. It was brilliant to get his insight into so many areas and I have to thank him for so much of his time. Absolutely one of the highlights of my week and I'm incredibly excited to see what comes from him in future.

After that, the first day of canjam was already coming to an end, but our group still had some fun to be had. We'd planned a private get together with just shy of 40 people coming. Renting out a venue, getting in some catering (big props to @eskamobob1 for the recommendation, the tacos were AMAZING), an awesome lineup of gear, and a far more awesome group of people.
I'm not going to share any videos/photos of the event with people in it (besides one) as it was a private event and we'd asked people not to film. We wanted people to be able to unwind and not be on camera, but gotta show some highlights of the cool stuff we had there.












Not gonna lie though I'd be lying if I said the Tacos weren't the highlight of it!

Canjam Day 2:

Day 2 of canjam arrived, and this time I was determined to actually listen to some gear. This show was BIG, far bigger than London Canjam and one day definitely would not have been enough to try everything. Two would have been a stretch still.
Especially when some of the items like the Warwick (which was in a soundproof pod! PLEASE more manufacturers do this in future, that thing was brilliant) had a VERY long queue to listen at times.

Luckily though I'd had the opportunity to listen to most of the items before either at home or previous events, but there was plenty of things that were new in general or new to me and I still struggled to get enough time with all of them.

A few highlights for me though and I'll do my best to keep impressions brief:

Warwick Aperio/Bravura:
I've done a full review of both of these, but I just have to say how brilliant this soundproof pod was. There are some things you just can't get a full grasp of on a show floor, and this really allowed the listener to get a better impression of both products. I REALLY hope we see more of these at future canjams.



Auribus Acoustics:

I'd been really keen to try this for quite some time and at last I was able to. Man this thing is fun. Simply excellent for the money with great technical performance, a fun, very dynamic and tastefully done tuning achieved with a combination of traditional mechanical design and analog filters that provide a seriously compelling package for the money. I'll have a full review of these coming.

ZMF Caldera:

WOW. I'm not too sure what I was expecting to hear with these, but whatever my expectations were, these exceeded them.
Take an atrium, give it a deep reaching, flat extension into the subbass, and add quite a significant amount of detail and soundstage, and you've got a caldera. Zach has seriously hit it out of the park with these.
I don't think these actually 'replace' the atrium for me, as their more energetic treble does mean they don't quite fill the same romantic and more laid back yet forceful presentation the Atrium does so well, but boy oh boy are these impressive and I'm certainly going to have to get myself a pair in future.
These were also surprisingly light. I figured given the need for large magnets they'd be heavier than the atrium but to my surprise they were considerably lighter. The concave grille looks beautiful in person in a way that really does not come across on camera too.
We were also lucky enough to try these at home in the quiet on the excellent ampsandsound nautilus which was a simply breathtaking experience.


Woo WA23:

I was a big fan of the WA33, and honestly, I think this is better. This is a wamer, more 'traditionally tubey' presentation that seemed to retain absolutely all of the technical performance of the WA33. All the good stuff with some sugar on top, what more could you ask for? How about a visually stunning design that I'd want on my desk just to look at even if it made no sound at all? Oh right...it has that too!

Post-Canjam:

Once the weekend had passed though, canjam was over, though our trip was not. I can confirm that you've not truly lived until you've been on a wild night out with @Gizmo1k and @ZeosPantera (which was too spicy for pictures sorry!), that was worth the trip in and of itself! But many of our group on Monday took a road-trip down to San Diego to visit Hodads, for what is perhaps the best Burger found anywhere in the world. Though be warned, you may not be able to eat for another day or two if you finish it!

How much audio gear do you need to carry before you need an armed escort?

And probably the best part of the whole trip: Surfing dog!

Unfortunately on the final day a few of us were feeling a bit rough, so we spent the last day relaxing at the house and on the beach, unwinding after an eventful but thoroughly awesome week.
We all had such an amazing time, and I'm so happy to be able to spend time with such amazing friends, meet so many awesome people, try such amazing stuff and see such amazing places.
I cannot wait for next year already!

Until then, cheers!

I live in waking distance of Hodads and haven’t been there yet. I didn’t realize it was supposed to be that great.

Also, I mentioned before the but the Expanse paired with the Woo WA23 was the highlight for me. That amazing warm tubey sound with all the details still coming thru. I already purchased the Expanse a few days before so got to try it out in a few setups and the Woo was the best by far.

 

[AudioDuck]

Woah, what cable is that?

The wire barely fits into that connector.

Looks like Norne Drausk, perhaps?

 

[scootermafia]

Looks like Norne Drausk, perhaps?

This was an experiment cable I built (15awg x 8 = 12awg x 4) to determine the relationship between cable gauge and SPL on the Raal transformer box. Not a retail product.

 

[chargedcapacitor]

This was an experiment cable I built (15awg x 8 = 12awg x 4) to determine the relationship between cable gauge and SPL on the Raal transformer box. Not a retail product.

Might could have just saved some time and money and just use the cross section and length calculation for the resistance of copper (and therefore find the voltage drop as well as attenuation factor).

But who am I kidding, why would anyone use electrical engineering principles for... electrical headphones? Looks cool though.

 

[dougms3]

This was an experiment cable I built (15awg x 8 = 12awg x 4) to determine the relationship between cable gauge and SPL on the Raal transformer box. Not a retail product.

That cable looks awesome. Out of curiosity, how much would that cost if it were to be made a retail product?

 

[xirxes]

That cable looks awesome. Out of curiosity, how much would that cost if it were to be made a retail product?

Skedra can make similar for ~$900-1100 usd depending in length.

 

[ImMcLovin]

I am a bit late to posting impressions, but it was awesome meeting new and familiar faces! It was also great to see so many more vendors at the show this year and see such a great turnout! Since there were so many booths and I wasn't able to spend a ton of time at the show, I spent most of my time listening to IEMs with some headphones (I mainly prefer IEMs over headphones/speakers). Since it's been a little bit, I'll just give some brief notes that I recall. All my IEM listening was done on my Shanling M8.

Oriolus Traillii: Best way I can describe this IEM was it sounded effortless. Well balanced and versatile. I noticed that it was able to deliver a lot of detail without feeling forced at all. Even with that said, its price tag is a bit steep compared to other TOTL IEMs that I've heard.

Fir Audio Xenon 6: One of the stand out IEMs for me at the show. Not sure in a great or good way though, but it sounded different which after listening to so many IEMs at the show, most IEMs start to mesh together in my head. Upon my very first listen, I was like "huuuh?" The bass sounded different than any other IEM I have heard. Kind of reminded of speakers. The rest of the frequency range sounded kind of weird and vailed in a way I am not sure how to describe, but it was just off. And then I just kept listening to it and listening to it. I started to understand it a bit more. I put the Xenon 6 down and tried other IEMs, but I kept looking at the Xenon 6 and I kept thinking "I got to try that again." I am glad I did. After a bit of brain burn in, I started to like it quite a bit. Its bass is addicting since it's so different than what I've heard. The rest of the frequency range started to smooth out for me and I started to really enjoy it. So to anyone that listens to this IEM, it definitely needs some brain burn in, but it'll be worth it if you enjoy bass. I haven't heard bass in an IEM quite like it. If I give it more audition time, I'd consider owning this if it weren't for the price.

Fir Audio Krypton 5 and Neon 4: I remember enjoying these, but not sure if they're something I'd want to buy. I just remember all three Fir Audio IEMs definitely serve different purposes. Also all three are really comfortable shape wise, might be a bit heavy for some.

Unique Melody Multiverse Mentor: The most "Western" tuned IEM out of the UM line-up. Very smooth, balanced, and coherent. Easy to listen to. Not as in your face as the MEST MkII and considerably more smooth/coherent than the MEST MkII. Only UM IEM I'd consider owning and I did use to own the MEST MkII. I'd consider buying this, but a bit too high priced for what I am willing to pay for.

Kinera Urd: Smooth, well balanced warm tuning. Great IEM for its price. A little big.

Kinera Idun: Would not have guessed that this costs $170 based on impressions. I could see myself recommending this to others who don't want to spend an arm and a leg for some IEMs.

Empire Ears Odyssey: Great IEM! Not aggressive sounding like the EVO. Clean, full, and coherent IEM. Probably my favorite Empire Ears IEM, even compared to my Legend X. Could listen to this all day without feeling fatigued. I'd consider owning this if it came custom.

Vision Ears EXT: Does take some of the traits of what made the Elysium a great IEM and adds a bit more low end to it. But it doesn't quite have that special sauce that the Elysium mid range had imo.

Campfire Audio Trifecta: Wasn't a huge fan of this. Something about it sounded off to me. Although, I had the pleasure of talking with someone who thought that it was the best IEM they heard at the show. It was clear that we had different tastes in music and when I listened to one of his tracks on it, I enjoyed it more than when I listened to it on my tracks.

Campfire Audio Supermoon: Sounds like a good planar IEM, but it's not for me tuning wise. Upper mids/treble was a bit too forward for my tastes. Although, I've met people who love the Supermoon. Seems like a love or dislike it kind of IEM.

Notes about some headphones:
Focal Utopia 2022: Now my favorite headphone out of the Focal line-up. I didn't like the original Utopia, but I did like the Clear a lot. Unfortunately, like all of Focal headphones, too heavy for me.
ZMF Caldera: Sounded great! Didn't have enough time to give good impressions on this, but amazing quality as usual from ZMF. It is too heavy for me though.
Meze 109 Pro: Great for the price. Meze still has some of the most comfortable headphones in the high end audio space. I'd consider buying this because of the comfort and value since most high end headphones I think are too heavy.
DCA Expanse: The best of the DCA house sound, but DCA house sound is a a bit dry sounding to me which is not quite my tastes. The DCA Aeon 2 Noire is still my favorite headphone that DCA offers. Build quality is great and it's comfortable!

In general, this show made me realize I definitely prefer IEMs that are tailored towards a more "Western" tuning. I do also have more notes on headphones, but in general, it was hard to gauge what I enjoyed sonically since it was a loud environment on headphones specifically.

 

[Skyediver]

Canjam SoCal this year was absolutely amazing and I have had a truly phenomenal week.
This is my first time going to Canjam SoCal (even though I lived in San Diego for a couple years!) and I am already incredibly excited for next year.

I'm not going to be making a video about this trip as for me, this was about spending time with friends who I very rarely get the opportunity to see, some of whom I've known for years but had not had the opportunity to meet in person before at all. So you'll have to excuse the mediocre photo quality as I just took my phone with me.

Pre-Canjam:
Myself, @skedra and his girlfriend Magda took an 11 hour flight across the pond for the event, and we stayed with a bunch of friends at a house on the beach in Newport rather than getting hotel rooms, with another 5 of us in another house just up the road.



Not a bad view to wake up to in the morning! And watching the sun going down over the ocean each night was a real treat too.



We stayed in SoCal together for a week, spending a few days either side of the event doing some stuff together, including going to see Kendrick Lamar and the Big Steppers tour on Day 1, and hiking up to the Hollywood sign on Day 2.





And of course, spending plenty of time on the beach, having some great food, and being a bunch of crazy audiophiles, enjoying some of the awesome gear that had been brought along.







@Danmellinger received the first HM1 unit in the US on the friday, so we were also able to spend some proper time with that over the next few days.


@SpeleoFool also upheld his title as 'King of Roon', outdoing his previous camping setup:

And instead constructing what I think technically qualifies as the world's largest DAP. Fully portable and on wheels, with a built in roon core, display, optional battery backup and both tube and solid state outputs! (Disclaimer: May not actually fit in your pocket)



Canjam Day 1:

At last though canjam day 1 arrived. And unfortunately I personally did not get to spend all that much time trying out gear as I spent the entirety of the morning speaking with people and catching up with friends. Time flew so fast that seemingly as soon as we got in, we were heading out for lunch again.

On the way back I had just enough time to go to Headamp's private room to try out their excellent (and wonderfully quiet!) setup upstairs away from the noise of the show floor.



This was my first time hearing the DCA Expanse and wow, those are a big step up over the stealth in my view. Fixing the dynamics issue I had previously and turning them into a SERIOUSLY good headphone. So good that @Danmellinger bought a pair about 30 seconds after listening!
Definitely something I'm looking forward to spending more time with and hopefully reviewing in future.

Once that was done, I headed to the "Digital Audio 201" talk given by @Rob Watts which was excellent. And afterwards had the fantastic opportunity to chat with him for a good hour and a half over coffee. It was brilliant to get his insight into so many areas and I have to thank him for so much of his time. Absolutely one of the highlights of my week and I'm incredibly excited to see what comes from him in future.

After that, the first day of canjam was already coming to an end, but our group still had some fun to be had. We'd planned a private get together with just shy of 40 people coming. Renting out a venue, getting in some catering (big props to @eskamobob1 for the recommendation, the tacos were AMAZING), an awesome lineup of gear, and a far more awesome group of people.
I'm not going to share any videos/photos of the event with people in it (besides one) as it was a private event and we'd asked people not to film. We wanted people to be able to unwind and not be on camera, but gotta show some highlights of the cool stuff we had there.












Not gonna lie though I'd be lying if I said the Tacos weren't the highlight of it!

Canjam Day 2:

Day 2 of canjam arrived, and this time I was determined to actually listen to some gear. This show was BIG, far bigger than London Canjam and one day definitely would not have been enough to try everything. Two would have been a stretch still.
Especially when some of the items like the Warwick (which was in a soundproof pod! PLEASE more manufacturers do this in future, that thing was brilliant) had a VERY long queue to listen at times.

Luckily though I'd had the opportunity to listen to most of the items before either at home or previous events, but there was plenty of things that were new in general or new to me and I still struggled to get enough time with all of them.

A few highlights for me though and I'll do my best to keep impressions brief:

Warwick Aperio/Bravura:
I've done a full review of both of these, but I just have to say how brilliant this soundproof pod was. There are some things you just can't get a full grasp of on a show floor, and this really allowed the listener to get a better impression of both products. I REALLY hope we see more of these at future canjams.



Auribus Acoustics:

I'd been really keen to try this for quite some time and at last I was able to. Man this thing is fun. Simply excellent for the money with great technical performance, a fun, very dynamic and tastefully done tuning achieved with a combination of traditional mechanical design and analog filters that provide a seriously compelling package for the money. I'll have a full review of these coming.

ZMF Caldera:

WOW. I'm not too sure what I was expecting to hear with these, but whatever my expectations were, these exceeded them.
Take an atrium, give it a deep reaching, flat extension into the subbass, and add quite a significant amount of detail and soundstage, and you've got a caldera. Zach has seriously hit it out of the park with these.
I don't think these actually 'replace' the atrium for me, as their more energetic treble does mean they don't quite fill the same romantic and more laid back yet forceful presentation the Atrium does so well, but boy oh boy are these impressive and I'm certainly going to have to get myself a pair in future.
These were also surprisingly light. I figured given the need for large magnets they'd be heavier than the atrium but to my surprise they were considerably lighter. The concave grille looks beautiful in person in a way that really does not come across on camera too.
We were also lucky enough to try these at home in the quiet on the excellent ampsandsound nautilus which was a simply breathtaking experience.


Woo WA23:

I was a big fan of the WA33, and honestly, I think this is better. This is a wamer, more 'traditionally tubey' presentation that seemed to retain absolutely all of the technical performance of the WA33. All the good stuff with some sugar on top, what more could you ask for? How about a visually stunning design that I'd want on my desk just to look at even if it made no sound at all? Oh right...it has that too!

Post-Canjam:

Once the weekend had passed though, canjam was over, though our trip was not. I can confirm that you've not truly lived until you've been on a wild night out with @Gizmo1k and @ZeosPantera (which was too spicy for pictures sorry!), that was worth the trip in and of itself! But many of our group on Monday took a road-trip down to San Diego to visit Hodads, for what is perhaps the best Burger found anywhere in the world. Though be warned, you may not be able to eat for another day or two if you finish it!

How much audio gear do you need to carry before you need an armed escort?

And probably the best part of the whole trip: Surfing dog!

Unfortunately on the final day a few of us were feeling a bit rough, so we spent the last day relaxing at the house and on the beach, unwinding after an eventful but thoroughly awesome week.
We all had such an amazing time, and I'm so happy to be able to spend time with such amazing friends, meet so many awesome people, try such amazing stuff and see such amazing places.
I cannot wait for next year already!

Until then, cheers!

You guys seemed to have had a great time, thanks for sharing. Like you, I used to live in SoCal. For any that haven’t been, this is a top tier recap of the things you could/should do to get a good sense of the “essence” of being there. Probably the only thing missing is some DisneyLand love.

Appreciate you @GoldenOne! With the chaos of CanJam there was no hope of it, but I’m a happy Patreon supporter, brought there through your analysis which helped me pull the trigger on the Holo May DAC. Should have that delivered in a week or so, excited!

 

[GoldenSound]

You guys seemed to have had a great time, thanks for sharing. Like you, I used to live in SoCal. For any that haven’t been, this is a top tier recap of the things you could/should do to get a good sense of the “essence” of being there. Probably the only thing missing is some DisneyLand love.

Appreciate you @GoldenOne! With the chaos of CanJam there was no hope of it, but I’m a happy Patreon supporter, brought there through your analysis which helped me pull the trigger on the Holo May DAC. Should have that delivered in a week or so, excited!

Thank you!
Join the Telegram chat if you've not done so already. That's where a lot of us that went met

We're definitely gonna do it again next year

 

[whirlwind]

Pretty difficult task making sure people are "doing it correctly"... Just as an example, the EL3N amp has a 1-stage / 2-stage switch on the front. When I first plugged the Caldera - I was surprised I had to almost max the volume! Quickly I realized someone switched to 1-stage mode, which is great for IEMs or VERY easy to drive headphones, but definitely under-powered for the Caldera. Switching to 2-stage mode made the combo sing beautifully.
Others might have tried with 1-stage and thought that combo is terrible, but since the switch is on the front - impossible to save people from themselves...

Yeah, if people would have changed the mode setting to use one tube then you won't get the full effects of the planar, at least not my LCD-4
Two tube mode changes everything with the planars.

One tube mode is fine, and quite nice for the ZMF VC, very clean sound. Works well with high impedance headphones.

 

[haasaaroni]

ZMF Caldera:

WOW. I'm not too sure what I was expecting to hear with these, but whatever my expectations were, these exceeded them.
Take an atrium, give it a deep reaching, flat extension into the subbass, and add quite a significant amount of detail and soundstage, and you've got a caldera. Zach has seriously hit it out of the park with these.
I don't think these actually 'replace' the atrium for me, as their more energetic treble does mean they don't quite fill the same romantic and more laid back yet forceful presentation the Atrium does so well, but boy oh boy are these impressive and I'm certainly going to have to get myself a pair in future.
These were also surprisingly light. I figured given the need for large magnets they'd be heavier than the atrium but to my surprise they were considerably lighter. The concave grille looks beautiful in person in a way that really does not come across on camera too.
We were also lucky enough to try these at home in the quiet on the excellent ampsandsound nautilus which was a simply breathtaking experience.


Woo WA23:

I was a big fan of the WA33, and honestly, I think this is better. This is a wamer, more 'traditionally tubey' presentation that seemed to retain absolutely all of the technical performance of the WA33. All the good stuff with some sugar on top, what more could you ask for? How about a visually stunning design that I'd want on my desk just to look at even if it made no sound at all? Oh right...it has that too!

Post-Canjam:

Once the weekend had passed though, canjam was over, though our trip was not. I can confirm that you've not truly lived until you've been on a wild night out with @Gizmo1k and @ZeosPantera (which was too spicy for pictures sorry!), that was worth the trip in and of itself! But many of our group on Monday took a road-trip down to San Diego to visit Hodads, for what is perhaps the best Burger found anywhere in the world. Though be warned, you may not be able to eat for another day or two if you finish it!

How much audio gear do you need to carry before you need an armed escort?

And probably the best part of the whole trip: Surfing dog!

Unfortunately on the final day a few of us were feeling a bit rough, so we spent the last day relaxing at the house and on the beach, unwinding after an eventful but thoroughly awesome week.
We all had such an amazing time, and I'm so happy to be able to spend time with such amazing friends, meet so many awesome people, try such amazing stuff and see such amazing places.
I cannot wait for next year already!

Until then, cheers!

Amazing impressions! The burgers at Hodad’s are insane right??? I just loved hearing your first impression of the Caldera in the ZMF room Saturday morning. I think you said something like “Oh, it goes!!”

 

[Zachik]

Yeah, if people would have changed the mode setting to use one tube then you won't get the full effects of the planar, at least not my LCD-4
Two tube mode changes everything with the planars.

One tube mode is fine, and quite nice for the ZMF VC, very clean sound. Works well with high impedance headphones.

I wonder how big is the Glenn EL3N club? Other than you, myself and @zach915m - how many Glenn EL3N amps are out there??