[audionewbi]

Anyone tried the new AK and beyerdynamic Iem or was the display box empty?

 

[AndrewH13]

Wow, what a day (Saturday). Went so quick speaking to great people, listening to great gear and attending two presentations. It was past six o'clock and I realised I'd only sat down at about a third of the stands I'd have liked to. Too much talking I guess, but so nice meeting fellow enthusiasts.
 
First off my wife and I were met by Ethan who quickly sorted out our tickets, having initially booked Sunday, a lovely welcome. Soon after met Mo, and had a great chat about all sorts of equipment, none more so than his QP1R which he left with us for 20 minutes. And then Jude who is so friendly and such a great ambassador. Like to give big thanks to ALL the organisers, some who's names escaped me, but were so helpful. Including Warren who I met late on and lent me some of the best IEMs I heard all day!, the 1 plus 2s
 
Really nice to meet Dan, who has passed on Final Heaven Vii's to me on the UK tour, and Mark who facilitated this. Also Ed and Rob from Chord. Thanks OK-Guy for the intros. We attended the interesting Chord presentation but I left hearing the Hugo TT for now as I am next in line in 10 days for a home trial after John, who I finally caught up with at about 6.15 where AKG showed us such patience. Very much looking forward to the TT arriving

.
 
Highlights for me were the Questyle QP1R, lovely DAP, providing loose-feeling volume wheel gets significantly tightened as promised on production, and JH/AK Angie's, just my type of sound. Also enjoyed trying other gear that I'd not heard before, the AK240, AR DAP, Noble R10, AKG 3003, Jaben Hyper Dynamic and Atomic Floyd Superdarts. Shame no time for phones such as the HE1000s!
 
Second presentation was the Q&A which was really interesting, with guys from Hi Fi + magazine joining Ethan and Jude. Pro's and Con's of Digital Music could have been discussed for hours!
 
 

 

 
 
 
Nearly escaped without taking anything home, better than I managed at Cambridge which resulted in a Hugo! But then met Duncan who had promised me a listen to the Translucent Audio IEMs. Agreed Duncan's Pure II+ made his AR a much more exciting listen. Then found the 1 plus 2's very much to my liking

 
Probably the friendliest and most informative show (of any kind) ever attended.

 

[joeexp]

The Fabulous  (No matter what price):
Noble Savant - Winner of the show for me; They just sound very natural. Will have to buy one of those!
Schiit Yggdrasil/Gungnir Multibit - Never had a chance to listen to one of those before the show. Very detailed, open and neutral sounding. Will probably get one in for further testing.
Questyle QP1 DAP - Really sounded great with those Ethers. Build Quality fantastic (same factory that produces the iPhones). Have a look at those if being portable is a must.
 
The Good (In no particular order):
Jerry Harvey Angies -  Feel Good, Sound Good - But you kind of expect that from them. The ooze quality.
Hifiman HE400S - Fantastic phones for entry-level planar magnetic. Could live with those. 
Hifiman HE1000 -  Nice open speaker-like sound. Very Comfortable despite their size; Not sure about the price though….
MrSpeakers Ether - Very Comfortable; Just a little too much roll-off towards the bottom end;  Like those. Perhaps a bit too pricey.
MrSpeakers Ether C -  Very Comfortable; Similar sound signature as the open version but perhaps a tiny bit congested sounding compared to the open version.
Audioquest Nighthawk - Easy listening,  nothing offensive about these phones. Good quality sound.
Oppo PM-3 - Great quality for moving about. Like them better then the PM-2s!
KEF M500 - Good Quality, nicely designed Headphones for travelling. 
RHA T20 - Beautiful metal injection moulded phones . RHA are going in the right direction.  Just a little too bass heavy. YMMV ...
Fostex T50RP - for £115 you can not be serious! Get one of those for modding!
AKG K812 - Better, more refined sounding then the Q701s. But are they worth that much more?
Pendulumic - Good, reasonable performance from reasonably priced phones. Good price to value.
Snugs Ear Phones -  Great idea for getting a better fit for your regular in-ears.
 
 
The Not so Good (Sorry):
Chord Hugo TT - As Hugo Portable owner I don't see much point in paying twice the price for a minute increase in Sound Quality, a remote control and a bigger chunk of metal.
Soul Jet, Soul Combat - I just didn't get those; Sounded kind of muffled- Oops;
V-Moda -  Looks nice, Good Design, cool idea with the 3d printed personalisation, sound-wise nothing to write home about. 

 

[tranhieu]

So it's finally over! Big thanks to everyone who helped making the event possible!
 
My impression in a nutshell (that's moedawg140 and his Questyle)
 

 

[piercer]

Awesome day at Canjam. Thanks to all the organisers. It really was fantastic. Quite surprised by how excited I got.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Stax and the Blue Hawaii were absolutely my favourite sound of the show. I think I really like the electrostatic earphone sound.
 

 

 

Yay - met Jude!
 

Another valve/electrostatic combo that sounded amazing. Still preferred the Stax.
 
 

 

 

 

 

I am going to be the first person to get snugs for JHA Layla universals! They are going to borrow some from Astell&Kern to make a template and then make me my custom tips.
I'll let you know what they are like.

 

[bflat]

   
 
I am going to be the first person to get snugs for JHA Layla universals! They are going to borrow some from Astell&Kern to make a template and then make me my custom tips.
I'll let you know what they are like.

 
Awesome! Please give us a report back on the Layla thread. If it works as expected, could easily be a mandatory upgrade.

 

[Stillhart]

So another company is using the new ear scanner tech, not just UE?  Very cool!

 

[krismusic]

I'm really pleased that CanJam was such a success. Kudos for all the hard work that members put into the event.
I went with two friends and met a couple of new ones.
However. I don't want to rain on the parade but.
I listened to a lot of gear but heard nothing that impressed me any more than my K10's out of my iPhone.
My friend and I listened at length to the Chord Hugo and an AK player. We used his 600's and my O2 fed from Spotify on my iPhone for comparison.
For £1400 I would expect a soundstage as if the sound was coming from six feet away. Surrounding me with sounds I could almost touch.
Instead I was struggling to detect any improvement on my £60 O2 and Spotify streamed on my phone!
I simply do not understand. All the enthusiasm on here for gear that myself and two friends found underwhelming.
I can only draw the conclusion that of course headphones sound radically different from each other. They are mechanical devices.
The electronics don't seem to me to have much impact at all.
A broader point. I have never heard a headphone rig that amazes me. Even the Orpheus.
My experience proves to me that finding a pair of headphones you like is key.
No amount of electronics, much less cables is going to produce the superlative results that some on here claim.
This is not intended to be rude or disrespectful. It is my informed opinion.
For balance I have heard two channel speaker based systems that I would buy without hesitation if I had 10k+ to spend. As well as an ideal acoustic environment.

 

[Turrican2]

Thanks to all involved in setting up this amazing event.  I had a great day today, heard lots of amazing gear and as usual met lots of excellent people (some familiar, some not).
 
Some highlights for me today:
 
 
Orpheus, @Takeanidea summed this up when he called it 'effortless', Just a stunning piece.
 

 
 
Resonessence Invicta. One of my all time favourite DAC/AMPS, I WILL own this sometime....
 
 
 

 
Echobox.  Really interesting 'hip flask' design on this. Sounds good and I like the way you can switch between standard Android (4.2) and the custom player/Streaming services. Made of real wood and felt great in the hand.
 
Wish it actually held Whisky though maybe in V2.0
 

 
AKG K812 - I've heard the K812 before and I think today was the best 'd heard them via a Schiit Valhalla, I think the tubes really work with these cans.  In the past they've been too bright for my liking and that was always via a solid state amp.
 

 
Lotoo - I'd never heard these or seen them in the flash and was very pleasantly surprised.  The PAW 5000 is a great little DAP.  Quite a little performer for it's size and built like a tank.  Seriously considering buying this when it's released (~£300).  It's big brother the Gold is a few notches up both in performance and price and VERY heavy (I like that), not a fan of the gold though, and unlike the 5000, the 'jog dial', well,  isn't - It's just a directional control, shame.
 

 

 
HE-1000 - Loved the HE-1000, sounded great out of the Hugo TT
 

 
 
 I liked the Hugo TT, but not as much as the Invicta.
 
 

 
HyperDynamic Transducer - I went to the Jaben stand to purchase some Spinfit tips, I wasn't prepared for what I found.  These IEMs have a frequency response based on the AKG K3003 (which I own).  Upon comparison (brief, only about 15 mins) I was amazed how close (build quality aside) these came, maybe the treble isn't quite as delicious but not by much.  I can't believe these will come in around $200....I'll be buying a couple of sets for sure!
 

 
Earwerkz - @moedawg140 introduced me to these 'supra' twin-driver iems.  They sounded amazing, with a flat but powerful signature, which I liked a lot.
 

 
 

Also bought a pair of snugs for my K3003 - They didn't have any templates for those but the AKG stand next door kindly donated a pair for them to use and create a cast - Very generous and a testament to the fantastic 'head-fi' spirit which we all appreciate.
 
Until next year, farewell CanJam, hope you return to the UK!

 

[Duncan]

Awesome! Please give us a report back on the Layla thread. If it works as expected, could easily be a mandatory upgrade.

seconded, I spoke to Snugs but the thought of losing my Layla's for two weeks whilst the initial casting for the casing was done was too much to bear, seems a good way around this

 

[glassmonkey]

The Chord being fed Spotify isn't going to make their low res music sound much better. The whole comparison is flawed. I'm sad to hear that someone with K10s hasn't upgraded to Tidal. The improvements in audio quality from Chord are in how it processes information, not in some magical transformation where it changes lead into gold. This isn't alchemy, its audio.

 

[LFC_SL]

This is not intended to be rude or disrespectful. It is my informed opinion.

If you cannot hear it then you cannot hear it. Better to demo and move on, than to buy any gear blind and be disappointed.

 

[bflat]

  The Chord being fed Spotify isn't going to make their low res music sound much better. The whole comparison is flawed. I'm sad to hear that someone with K10s hasn't upgraded to Tidal. The improvements in audio quality from Chord are in how it processes information, not in some magical transformation where it changes lead into gold. This isn't alchemy, its audio.

I agree that is a bit extreme. However, in my brief listen to the Sony ZX2, what struck me the most was how great compressed music files sounded. IMHO, there is some DSP magic going on in there and I think even hi end IEMs like K10 would be a fine fit. Maybe Chord has some of the same "magic" in their proprietary DAC?

 

[gr8soundz]

Unable to be at the show. Thanks to everyone posting pics and impressions.
 
Hearing a lot of positives about the Questyle QP1 and the Fostex MK3.
 
Any comparisons of the Questyle sound quality versus other portables (Pono, ZX2, DX100, etc.)?
 
Also, not seeing anything about the Marshall London yet. Is it at the show and has anyone heard it?
 

 

[krismusic]

The Chord being fed Spotify isn't going to make their low res music sound much better. The whole comparison is flawed. I'm sad to hear that someone with K10s hasn't upgraded to Tidal. The improvements in audio quality from Chord are in how it processes information, not in some magical transformation where it changes lead into gold. This isn't alchemy, its audio.

The Chord was not being fed Spotify. It was been fed from an AK player.
We were comparing an iPhone streaming the same track through an O2 amp.
I am not paying double the price of Spotify for Tidal when I cannot hear the difference between 320kps (Spotify Premium allegedly
gives that nitrate) and Lossless.