When I went to check the floor maps for this year’s Autumn festival, a couple of clearly un-labeled tables and rooms suggested some serious announcements and that was certainly true. One of those unlabelled tables was for “Just ear”, a division of Sony that will be making custom in-ear monitors. With serious prices above $2000, the target market is most likely to be musicians, given Sony’s strong connections through Sony Music. Initially they will be sold in Japan in 2015, followed by the rest of the world. The monitors themselves are hybrid BA/dynamic models, with three example tunings provided for demonstration purposes: Listening, Monitor and Club Sound.
I had a listen to the “Listening” version and the sound was open, clear and detailed, though given they were a universal version of a custom IEM, the frequency response seemed slightly imperfect. The engineer I talked to said that they could tune them as required by the customer. Check out the video.
l
Before the show a group of us had the pleasure of hanging out with the guys from Emilie (who distribute Oppo and other well-known brands in Japan). The latest in their list is Korean Aurender, who have made the Flow, a DAC/amp that works with both Apple and Android portable devices via USB and Astell and Kern players (or similar) via optical. The Aurender Flow also optionally includes an internal 1TB SSD drive, which, once controlled by software on your computer or portable device, becomes a music server of sorts. The metal ring around the display doubles as a volume control.
The sound with both Audeze planars and HD-800s was eye-opening, reminding me a lot of the Hugo. At around half the price of a Hugo, however, it is going to be a serious contender for the high-end portable market.
Controls on the side work with USB Apple and Android devices.
Harry Lee from Aurender took the time to talk about the Flow with me at the show:
It is always fun to chat and hang out with Gavin of Tralucent Audio who, if you don’t already know, had his IEMs designed and made originally to cater to his personal desire to take his hi-fi system’s sound with him on the go. The Reference 1 is a 1plus2 with a better BA driver and has a slightly different tuning as a result. This year he has been working on making a better Uber cable and the result is a better match with the Reference 1 and better overall design and ergonomics with a metal splitter and new AK240 balanced plug. Neat was a balanced-to-single-ended converter inside of a thin Oyaide plug, the thinnest I’ve yet seen. The lower sleeving unfortunately transmits noise still. Sound-wise they are a bit warmer than the 1plus2, the Reference 1 has glorious mids and lovely highs that, despite being quite bright, lack of any grain harshness or another anomalies makes it pleasurable to listen even to less than perfect recordings. Left un-touched is the trademark powerful dynamic driver bass that doesn’t seem to intrude on the mids and treble at all. My only complaint was that the mid-bass was a touch strong on some tracks.
Overall an excellent pair of IEMs that once again show how far it is possible to take high-end universal IEMs.
I spotted a tall, elderly bearded foreign gentleman at the show and immediately knew it had to be someone I should meet and I was right. I had met Tim Paravicini's wife at the first show I went to back in 2011, so it was a great pleasure to meet and talk to the man himself.
While you may be familiar with famous his hi-fi amps, what you may not know is that he has been making the statement E.A.R. HP4 amp for many years and it still stands as one of the very best available. Combined with a Clearaudio Concept turntable, this is the rig to listen to last at the show, as nothing else will sound as good afterwards.
If not only just to get a hold of the awesomely comfortable SpinFit IEM tips, it is worth stopping by the Ocharaku table just to listen to the remarkably designed and great-sounding IEMs. One is sold by ALO Audio in the US under the Olasonic brand.
While their VIDA phono stage is lifting eyebrows in Europe, the HEADA balanced headphone amp with its up to 2W power output is doing similar in Asia. Look out for a review in the near future.
Bootsy with the new all-metal Edition 5s.
While the Edition 5 is now available with metal rather than wood cups (and a slightly different sound as a result) for 2000 Euro, more interesting to the majority of Head-Fiers was the new Performance series 840, 860 and 880. With the same basic driver and different coatings the price of these headphones is far more reasonable at around $400-600.
The problem I had with most Ultrasones was that the ear space wasn’t large or deep enough for the S-Logic to work its magic, resulting in a kind of surround-sound in my head rather than around it. For the few people whom it did work it was supposed to be quite good. The Performance series finally addresses this with an entirely new design with large pads. To me I felt that they sounded better out of my Hugo than the Edition series ever did, though they are quite bright so not everyone might agree.
Very roughly the 840s are more dark and bass-ey sounding. The 860s were bass-lean and bright and the 880s somewhere between the other two. All the headphones seemed to have pretty good imaging
Design-wise they are light and comfortable with nice pads and with a single 3.5mm locking plug cable into one side. The small cable going between the cups is a bit of a concern, as it is in an easily visible channel that could see it worn by adjusting the headphones for fit. Overall though, I think they have a lot of promise.
Michael Zirkel talks about the new Performance Series here:
The first person I've ever met wearing Google Glass was Daii Iwata of Hidizs. They had the AP100 DAP on display, a $299 challenger to the FiiO X5.
While there were no new products announced, I did ask if they were still working on a new "statement" amp and they said it was still in progress. What was noticeable was that each festival the members manning their tables were younger! They have been working on the development of a new generation of staff, including engineers to ensure Stax goes on into the future.
The Z7 and Z5 were on display for audition, the latter of which I auditioned and was quite impressed by the sound, much more so than their less expensive hybrids. Many people have been hoping for a successor to the EX1000 and this could well be it.
I also noticed a familiar site: Bluetooth speakers. I bought one of the smaller rectangular models to use at work when teaching. While the sound isn't very detailed, they do a very good job, especially with vocals, at filling a room when placed on a table or shelf. The big one could be just the ticket for music at a party or similar.
RHA made it all the way to Tokyo to put their T10i on display.
A year or so ago I auditioned the JR Sound HPA-203 headphone amplifier and was quite impressed, though I would expect to be with its 129,000 yen price. When passing their table I noticed that they have a balanced amp available, the HPA-206. With up to 6W of output (at 32 Ohms) this is a serious amp from this Japanese maker.
I didn't realise it at first, but the EF-6 amp has a 3.5mm input socket on the front, making it very convenient to connect a portable player for auditioning. It was fun to compare the HE-560 to the HE-6 out of a seriously powerful amp. With cost not an option I'd have a lot of trouble choosing between them if I already had a serious amp that would be good with either.
Interestingly, on their table there was a very vintage Nikon. @shigzeo eat your heart out!
Noble Audio continued their successful partnership with Wagnus showing their IEMs alongside Haru's cables and amps, this time with the K10 universal on display, as well as the Prestige series, alongside a considerable selection of the Wizard's amazing custom art.
Brannan "The Glove" Mason with Haru from Wagnus
Gold and silver flakes in the manner of custom Japanese goods marked at least one set of IEMs shown to us by Brannan.
While there are only so many ways you can skin a cat, or rather design a pair of headphones, you have to give credit to Pioneer for their floating cup design and interesting choice of colors (all of which refused to photograph well) in their SE-MX9, SE-CX8 and SE-CX9 series headphones and IEMs.
When I heard the the 3D-printed Alpha Dogs, I thought “pretty good effort”. What Dan had extracted out of the Fostex TP50 driver was pretty surprising, so I was pretty keen to hear his latest model, the Alpha Prime. Between Dan’s Auralic Vega and Cavalli Audio Liquid Crimson amp rig and my Hugo the result was the same: Seriously good sound with the limitations of the Alpha Dogs nowhere to be found. What was most remarkable was that the treble (with tuning inserts removed) was bright, but not fatiguing. Whatever Dan did the drivers it certainly worked!
Dan, MrSpeakers himself at his table.
Dopaminer with the Alpha Primes
On the other end of the IEM Estron’s Allan Sorrig and Carit Laursen commented to me that they had learned a lot from the response to their ultra-strong-yet-ultra-thin cables. The presence of an AK240 balanced cable on their certainly agreed with this! These cables will be available next year from their online web shop, created in response to the flood of emails from Head-Fi members wanting to buy their products.
New AK240 balanced cables.
Modified Sure IEMs.
A variety of cables for different IEMs were available for audition.
See also Sorensiim's factory tour for more info:
Still, at least for now, exclusive to the Japanese market, and at the very next table at the event, FitEar launched the FitEar IEM. Confused? Yes, it’s called the “FitEar FitEar”. I promptly bought a pair after having a listen, as since I already own a pair of Parterres which I like a lot (the 334 To Go tuning was too bass-heavy for my tastes). Compared to my Parterres, which have something of a “light” sound, the FitEar seems to be a bit more mid-forward with slightly stronger mid-bass. Though no information is given on what drivers are inside, they are likely to be some combination of multiple BA drivers.
While availability is scarce, FitEar IEMs, or at least the 334s are available from Fujiya Avic in Tokyo and ALO Audio outside of Japan. I had a chat with Suyama-san about the limited availability. While he is pleased with the positive response people have had towards his IEMs, he cannot make more than 5 pairs a day and finding more highly skilled staff to make them is a considerable challenge.
Elvis .. I mean Suyama-san was in the building. (See last-year's report if you don't get the joke.)
Other than the Blue Note edition, they were displaying cables from Crystal Cable with some very expensive cables on display.
It was a pleasure to meet Dale of Aurisonics and have him give me a demonstration of how robust and good-sounding the Rockets are. His experience designing military equipment has been put to good use in the titanium-shelled Rockets, as even after the demo models spent 2 days having their kevlar cables yanked yard and being stamped on (albeit not dunked in water as with his usual demo) they were still working and sounding good.
Dale Lott demonstrated for me how his experience in making military-grade equipment lead to him designing the ultra-tough rockets:
Michael Goodman was on hand to demonstrate the prototype of his i5 iPhone DAC/amp. With the electronics mostly done, a version will also be built for the iPhone 6.
Michael Goodman of Centrance with Sasaki-san.
The i5 prototype.
Michael gave me an overview of the device and the link to his Indiegogo campaign:
While ribbon-wire cables have been available for a while now, Ken has refined them with better materials for his new Ribbon line. What is more they are less expensive than his usual braided cables and far less bulky.
They also make a 3.5mm plug-in version of the super tweeter, and last year began offering headphones and cables modified with one built-in to the cable itself.
The ATH-DN1000USB
The ATH-W1000Z. Audio Technica's woodies have been somewhat hit-and-miss with me, mainly due to the fit, which seems to favor people with wide, round heads. The pads on the W1000Z seem to be a merger of the new style on the X series with the flat face of the pads on their older woodies. Once I got a good fit (I had to push in at the bottom of the arcs) the sound suggested a serious competitor to Sony's Z7s, with a more even sound and less bass. Thankfully they don't have "limited" in their description. However, the ESW9LTD, which was also on display, are.
The ATH-CKR9LTD IEMs with the AT-PHA100 DAC/amp, which has a unique side volume control.
I auditioned this rig with my own phone and music and wasn't impressed. So I tried the IEMs from my Hugo and they were great.
With so many people making amps these days and the market moving solidly towards DAPs I almost walked straight past this table until I saw the bowl full of neat AK240-suitable 2.5mm TRRS plugs to which very small, but easy-to-solder circuit boards had been attached. Given how horrible they are to solder, this was a clever idea I thought.
So I had a look at what else they were making, and it is NOT an amp. The AClear Porta is a headphone conditioner -- basically a transformer for headphones, a variety of models available from about $120-450 (excepting desktop models). It turned out later that the crazy rig I had seen in e-earphone contained a balanced one, connected to a Hugo no less. Various models are available: Most are single-ended only, but the one I tried will take single-ended or balanced for the input or output.
I have been loaned one for review, which I'll write about later.
A customer's rig spotted in e-earphone with the balanced model:
Plenty of DIY kits are available here with magazines, including detailed information and numerous options for tweaking. Some of the kits aren't small either, but quite involved. Especially with Akihabara close by, it would be very easy to start a serious DIY addiction living here.
I'm a big fan of Heil tweeter speakers (I'm pondering how I can get a pair of ELACs or Unity Audio speakers into my system and already own Emotiva and ADAM designs that use them) so I was very curious to try the oBravo HAMT-1 that uses a large dynamic driver with a Heil tweeter in front. The result was rather unique sonically -- they really need an extended audition as they don't sound anything like regular headphones. They also had their own amp on display.
The number of European firms at the show, like the number of American ones, has been steadily increasing from year to year, lately including Rhines Custom Monitors, who had their range of CIEM designs on display.
This bag shop, which sells primarily online (it is only open 2-3 days a month) sells a bewildering array of bags for everything from phones and cameras up to briefcase and camera bags, many of which come with numerous options.
One of the coolest things I saw them demonstrating was their new earphone card case with neat velcro inserts suitable for holding a pair of IEMs and/or portable amps and small accessories.
No Tokyo show would be complete without tables of weird and wonderful things. One at the show had unique headphones, including a Paul Smith designed Audio Technica.
Jude with a pair of electret headphones. Unfortunately they didn't sound so great.
The DIY guys.
@mrspeakers has competition...sort-of. These guys make a 3D printed headphone kit. This pair has a super-tweeter inside!
Plenty of interesting DIY amps on display.
This amp even has a house inside!
The best part of the show though was hanging out with friends, meeting new people and generally having a good time.
Before the show: Sean (Anakchan), Kenzo (Emilie), Haru (Wagnus) and Brannan (Noble).
The Aurender guys chat with Jude.
Plenty of laughs were had too.
Haru and Brannan "The Glove" Mason.
Michael Goodman of Centrance and Sasaki-san.
Dan -- MrSpeakers
Bootsy1
Mike - Mkubota1 and Jude with with the Addicted to Audio guys who flew up from Melbourne, Australia, to attend the show.
I had a listen to the “Listening” version and the sound was open, clear and detailed, though given they were a universal version of a custom IEM, the frequency response seemed slightly imperfect. The engineer I talked to said that they could tune them as required by the customer. Check out the video.
Aurender
Before the show a group of us had the pleasure of hanging out with the guys from Emilie (who distribute Oppo and other well-known brands in Japan). The latest in their list is Korean Aurender, who have made the Flow, a DAC/amp that works with both Apple and Android portable devices via USB and Astell and Kern players (or similar) via optical. The Aurender Flow also optionally includes an internal 1TB SSD drive, which, once controlled by software on your computer or portable device, becomes a music server of sorts. The metal ring around the display doubles as a volume control.
The sound with both Audeze planars and HD-800s was eye-opening, reminding me a lot of the Hugo. At around half the price of a Hugo, however, it is going to be a serious contender for the high-end portable market.
Controls on the side work with USB Apple and Android devices.
Harry Lee from Aurender took the time to talk about the Flow with me at the show:
Tralucent Audio
It is always fun to chat and hang out with Gavin of Tralucent Audio who, if you don’t already know, had his IEMs designed and made originally to cater to his personal desire to take his hi-fi system’s sound with him on the go. The Reference 1 is a 1plus2 with a better BA driver and has a slightly different tuning as a result. This year he has been working on making a better Uber cable and the result is a better match with the Reference 1 and better overall design and ergonomics with a metal splitter and new AK240 balanced plug. Neat was a balanced-to-single-ended converter inside of a thin Oyaide plug, the thinnest I’ve yet seen. The lower sleeving unfortunately transmits noise still. Sound-wise they are a bit warmer than the 1plus2, the Reference 1 has glorious mids and lovely highs that, despite being quite bright, lack of any grain harshness or another anomalies makes it pleasurable to listen even to less than perfect recordings. Left un-touched is the trademark powerful dynamic driver bass that doesn’t seem to intrude on the mids and treble at all. My only complaint was that the mid-bass was a touch strong on some tracks.
Overall an excellent pair of IEMs that once again show how far it is possible to take high-end universal IEMs.
E.A.R. Yoshino
I spotted a tall, elderly bearded foreign gentleman at the show and immediately knew it had to be someone I should meet and I was right. I had met Tim Paravicini's wife at the first show I went to back in 2011, so it was a great pleasure to meet and talk to the man himself.
While you may be familiar with famous his hi-fi amps, what you may not know is that he has been making the statement E.A.R. HP4 amp for many years and it still stands as one of the very best available. Combined with a Clearaudio Concept turntable, this is the rig to listen to last at the show, as nothing else will sound as good afterwards.
Ocharaku
If not only just to get a hold of the awesomely comfortable SpinFit IEM tips, it is worth stopping by the Ocharaku table just to listen to the remarkably designed and great-sounding IEMs. One is sold by ALO Audio in the US under the Olasonic brand.
Aurorasound
While their VIDA phono stage is lifting eyebrows in Europe, the HEADA balanced headphone amp with its up to 2W power output is doing similar in Asia. Look out for a review in the near future.
Ultrasone
Bootsy with the new all-metal Edition 5s.
While the Edition 5 is now available with metal rather than wood cups (and a slightly different sound as a result) for 2000 Euro, more interesting to the majority of Head-Fiers was the new Performance series 840, 860 and 880. With the same basic driver and different coatings the price of these headphones is far more reasonable at around $400-600.
The problem I had with most Ultrasones was that the ear space wasn’t large or deep enough for the S-Logic to work its magic, resulting in a kind of surround-sound in my head rather than around it. For the few people whom it did work it was supposed to be quite good. The Performance series finally addresses this with an entirely new design with large pads. To me I felt that they sounded better out of my Hugo than the Edition series ever did, though they are quite bright so not everyone might agree.
Very roughly the 840s are more dark and bass-ey sounding. The 860s were bass-lean and bright and the 880s somewhere between the other two. All the headphones seemed to have pretty good imaging
Design-wise they are light and comfortable with nice pads and with a single 3.5mm locking plug cable into one side. The small cable going between the cups is a bit of a concern, as it is in an easily visible channel that could see it worn by adjusting the headphones for fit. Overall though, I think they have a lot of promise.
Michael Zirkel talks about the new Performance Series here:
Hidizs
The first person I've ever met wearing Google Glass was Daii Iwata of Hidizs. They had the AP100 DAP on display, a $299 challenger to the FiiO X5.
Stax
While there were no new products announced, I did ask if they were still working on a new "statement" amp and they said it was still in progress. What was noticeable was that each festival the members manning their tables were younger! They have been working on the development of a new generation of staff, including engineers to ensure Stax goes on into the future.
Sony
The Z7 and Z5 were on display for audition, the latter of which I auditioned and was quite impressed by the sound, much more so than their less expensive hybrids. Many people have been hoping for a successor to the EX1000 and this could well be it.
I also noticed a familiar site: Bluetooth speakers. I bought one of the smaller rectangular models to use at work when teaching. While the sound isn't very detailed, they do a very good job, especially with vocals, at filling a room when placed on a table or shelf. The big one could be just the ticket for music at a party or similar.
RHA
RHA made it all the way to Tokyo to put their T10i on display.
JRSound
A year or so ago I auditioned the JR Sound HPA-203 headphone amplifier and was quite impressed, though I would expect to be with its 129,000 yen price. When passing their table I noticed that they have a balanced amp available, the HPA-206. With up to 6W of output (at 32 Ohms) this is a serious amp from this Japanese maker.
HiFiMan
I didn't realise it at first, but the EF-6 amp has a 3.5mm input socket on the front, making it very convenient to connect a portable player for auditioning. It was fun to compare the HE-560 to the HE-6 out of a seriously powerful amp. With cost not an option I'd have a lot of trouble choosing between them if I already had a serious amp that would be good with either.
Interestingly, on their table there was a very vintage Nikon. @shigzeo eat your heart out!
Noble/Wagnus
Noble Audio continued their successful partnership with Wagnus showing their IEMs alongside Haru's cables and amps, this time with the K10 universal on display, as well as the Prestige series, alongside a considerable selection of the Wizard's amazing custom art.
Brannan "The Glove" Mason with Haru from Wagnus
Gold and silver flakes in the manner of custom Japanese goods marked at least one set of IEMs shown to us by Brannan.
Pioneer
While there are only so many ways you can skin a cat, or rather design a pair of headphones, you have to give credit to Pioneer for their floating cup design and interesting choice of colors (all of which refused to photograph well) in their SE-MX9, SE-CX8 and SE-CX9 series headphones and IEMs.
MrSpeakers
When I heard the the 3D-printed Alpha Dogs, I thought “pretty good effort”. What Dan had extracted out of the Fostex TP50 driver was pretty surprising, so I was pretty keen to hear his latest model, the Alpha Prime. Between Dan’s Auralic Vega and Cavalli Audio Liquid Crimson amp rig and my Hugo the result was the same: Seriously good sound with the limitations of the Alpha Dogs nowhere to be found. What was most remarkable was that the treble (with tuning inserts removed) was bright, but not fatiguing. Whatever Dan did the drivers it certainly worked!
Dan, MrSpeakers himself at his table.
Dopaminer with the Alpha Primes
Estron Linum
On the other end of the IEM Estron’s Allan Sorrig and Carit Laursen commented to me that they had learned a lot from the response to their ultra-strong-yet-ultra-thin cables. The presence of an AK240 balanced cable on their certainly agreed with this! These cables will be available next year from their online web shop, created in response to the flood of emails from Head-Fi members wanting to buy their products.
New AK240 balanced cables.
Modified Sure IEMs.
A variety of cables for different IEMs were available for audition.
See also Sorensiim's factory tour for more info:
Venturecraft
The SounDroid VANTAM is the latest product from the company that has brought a number of unique and popular iDevice DAC/amp designs. The VANTAM features USB and iDevice input as usual, but this time accepting up to 32bit/384kHz and up to 4x DSD input with digital upsampling settings available using switches on the top of the neatly-cased unit. Output is balanced too. The price is expected to be 60,000 yen (~$600).FitEar
Still, at least for now, exclusive to the Japanese market, and at the very next table at the event, FitEar launched the FitEar IEM. Confused? Yes, it’s called the “FitEar FitEar”. I promptly bought a pair after having a listen, as since I already own a pair of Parterres which I like a lot (the 334 To Go tuning was too bass-heavy for my tastes). Compared to my Parterres, which have something of a “light” sound, the FitEar seems to be a bit more mid-forward with slightly stronger mid-bass. Though no information is given on what drivers are inside, they are likely to be some combination of multiple BA drivers.
While availability is scarce, FitEar IEMs, or at least the 334s are available from Fujiya Avic in Tokyo and ALO Audio outside of Japan. I had a chat with Suyama-san about the limited availability. While he is pleased with the positive response people have had towards his IEMs, he cannot make more than 5 pairs a day and finding more highly skilled staff to make them is a considerable challenge.
Elvis .. I mean Suyama-san was in the building. (See last-year's report if you don't get the joke.)
Astell & Kern
Other than the Blue Note edition, they were displaying cables from Crystal Cable with some very expensive cables on display.
Aurisonics
It was a pleasure to meet Dale of Aurisonics and have him give me a demonstration of how robust and good-sounding the Rockets are. His experience designing military equipment has been put to good use in the titanium-shelled Rockets, as even after the demo models spent 2 days having their kevlar cables yanked yard and being stamped on (albeit not dunked in water as with his usual demo) they were still working and sounding good.
Dale Lott demonstrated for me how his experience in making military-grade equipment lead to him designing the ultra-tough rockets:
Centrance
Michael Goodman was on hand to demonstrate the prototype of his i5 iPhone DAC/amp. With the electronics mostly done, a version will also be built for the iPhone 6.
Michael Goodman of Centrance with Sasaki-san.
The i5 prototype.
Michael gave me an overview of the device and the link to his Indiegogo campaign:
ALO Audio
While ribbon-wire cables have been available for a while now, Ken has refined them with better materials for his new Ribbon line. What is more they are less expensive than his usual braided cables and far less bulky.
Kura-da
With their standard model now on sale for an eye-watering 194,000 yen (~$1900) and sounding better than ever, they had their TaylorMade program headphones on display with exotic woods and materials more along the lines of what you'd choose for furniture.Cowon
The people I know who have auditioned the PLENUE P1 have all good things to say about it, so I was not surprised to see the classy looking player on display at the show.TakeT
Now with version 3 of their unique and awesome-sounding headphones, but this time without their matching amp, the H2 is a very unique and open-sounding pair of headphones, the only ones available with built-in super-tweeters, adjustable via flaps on the front of the cups. The idea of the super-tweeter is that, rather than hearing the sound, you feel it in your face, giving you the perception of a greater soundstage.They also make a 3.5mm plug-in version of the super tweeter, and last year began offering headphones and cables modified with one built-in to the cable itself.
Forte
Forte, a US company, had a range of inexpensive colorful IEMs on display.Audio Technica
With an entirely new line-up of headphones and IEMs, Audio Technica also had a DAC/amp on display.The ATH-DN1000USB
The ATH-W1000Z. Audio Technica's woodies have been somewhat hit-and-miss with me, mainly due to the fit, which seems to favor people with wide, round heads. The pads on the W1000Z seem to be a merger of the new style on the X series with the flat face of the pads on their older woodies. Once I got a good fit (I had to push in at the bottom of the arcs) the sound suggested a serious competitor to Sony's Z7s, with a more even sound and less bass. Thankfully they don't have "limited" in their description. However, the ESW9LTD, which was also on display, are.
The ATH-CKR9LTD IEMs with the AT-PHA100 DAC/amp, which has a unique side volume control.
I auditioned this rig with my own phone and music and wasn't impressed. So I tried the IEMs from my Hugo and they were great.
AKG
I finally got around to trying the K812s using my Hugo. While the overall tonal balance was to my liking, they didn't have the degree of clean and clear sound I was hoping for. However, the K712s definitely sounded like an improvement over the K701s I owned years ago, with a touch more bass balancing up their slightly upper-mid forward presentation. Thankfully they have also removed the bumps on the headband that were so annoying.Kingsound
The Kingsound electrostats were on display with a new battery-powered DAC/amp, which sounded pretty reasonably good using my AK240 optical out.Nice Sound / Nakamura
With so many people making amps these days and the market moving solidly towards DAPs I almost walked straight past this table until I saw the bowl full of neat AK240-suitable 2.5mm TRRS plugs to which very small, but easy-to-solder circuit boards had been attached. Given how horrible they are to solder, this was a clever idea I thought.
So I had a look at what else they were making, and it is NOT an amp. The AClear Porta is a headphone conditioner -- basically a transformer for headphones, a variety of models available from about $120-450 (excepting desktop models). It turned out later that the crazy rig I had seen in e-earphone contained a balanced one, connected to a Hugo no less. Various models are available: Most are single-ended only, but the one I tried will take single-ended or balanced for the input or output.
I have been loaned one for review, which I'll write about later.
A customer's rig spotted in e-earphone with the balanced model:
DIY Magazines
Plenty of DIY kits are available here with magazines, including detailed information and numerous options for tweaking. Some of the kits aren't small either, but quite involved. Especially with Akihabara close by, it would be very easy to start a serious DIY addiction living here.
oBravo
I'm a big fan of Heil tweeter speakers (I'm pondering how I can get a pair of ELACs or Unity Audio speakers into my system and already own Emotiva and ADAM designs that use them) so I was very curious to try the oBravo HAMT-1 that uses a large dynamic driver with a Heil tweeter in front. The result was rather unique sonically -- they really need an extended audition as they don't sound anything like regular headphones. They also had their own amp on display.
Rhines Custom Monitors
The number of European firms at the show, like the number of American ones, has been steadily increasing from year to year, lately including Rhines Custom Monitors, who had their range of CIEM designs on display.
Van Nuys
This bag shop, which sells primarily online (it is only open 2-3 days a month) sells a bewildering array of bags for everything from phones and cameras up to briefcase and camera bags, many of which come with numerous options.
One of the coolest things I saw them demonstrating was their new earphone card case with neat velcro inserts suitable for holding a pair of IEMs and/or portable amps and small accessories.
Weird and wonderful.
No Tokyo show would be complete without tables of weird and wonderful things. One at the show had unique headphones, including a Paul Smith designed Audio Technica.
Jude with a pair of electret headphones. Unfortunately they didn't sound so great.
The DIY guys.
@mrspeakers has competition...sort-of. These guys make a 3D printed headphone kit. This pair has a super-tweeter inside!
Plenty of interesting DIY amps on display.
This amp even has a house inside!
Fun!
The best part of the show though was hanging out with friends, meeting new people and generally having a good time.
Before the show: Sean (Anakchan), Kenzo (Emilie), Haru (Wagnus) and Brannan (Noble).
The Aurender guys chat with Jude.
Plenty of laughs were had too.
Haru and Brannan "The Glove" Mason.
Michael Goodman of Centrance and Sasaki-san.
Dan -- MrSpeakers
Bootsy1
Mike - Mkubota1 and Jude with with the Addicted to Audio guys who flew up from Melbourne, Australia, to attend the show.
