@Torq it’s finally my turn to listen to Storm thanks to @tamtrum
I really did not want to like them but the Storm won out. This is easily the best IEM I have listened to. Bass texture is unlike anything I have experienced before in an IEM.
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Awesome!
I guess I shall have to see about getting my ears on a set then!
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Have fun y’all, wish I was there!
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I won’t bore everyone with a synopsis of all of the amazing encounters I had at CanJam. It would take far too long to read (and write)! I just wanted to say I had an incredible time and thank you to everyone involved in making this happen, the vendors, and especially the speakers.
This isn’t a convention. It’s an experience.
I intend to fly next year, which means I could attend at another location. Is SoCal the top US location, or maybe New York, or it doesn’t really matter?
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Some various CanJam photos and whatnot
I didn’t get much opportunity to walk the show floor this year sadly but that’s OK as you all came to our booth anyways to chat! Met some new people who I know are members of our forum here for the first time in person and saw some familiar faces as well (always great seeing @AudioTool !).
From just a sheer amount of gear and exhibitor perspective, I’d say it was the largest CanJam yet. I don’t think audience attendance was at its peak but it was definitely still a very steady show.
@Mad_Economist @GoldenSound and DMS all did some very interesting panels at the show as well. Hopefully one or two makes it to the internet at some point to watch! Some post show coverage will be coming as well so take a look at that.
Fantastic show! We won’t be exhibiting in Dallas in November but will certainly be in New York in March. Looking forward to the next one!
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Dude those design renders for the show are top notch. Same person who made the HEDDPhone TWO poster too?
Also, what set is this below?
Yup! Our in-house designer Kayla Craven made them. You can check out more of her work on her Instagram! She also designed the box art for Mirai, connectors for our Listenmore cables (and packaging) in addition to a lot of our current and upcoming merch (Resolve mug was me) along with a lot of the changes you see to our website. Super stoked to have her as a part of our team!
The set is a very early prototype from SJY Audio. They dropped by our booth to give some of their stuff a listen. Only the bass had been tuned on the unit though so can’t comment too much on the sound beyond the bass being nice. Very lightweight as well. Still a ways off from a production unit though.
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Was Ryan from Modhouse Audio there with his Tungsten planars?
If anybody heard them do tell! 
Her work is awesome, I am sure there will be lots of cool stuff in the future with her insight. Can we get some photos of the new cables too if you have them? Given the seemingly endless things at the show, I don’t know if anyone else has photos/videos.
Just got home from my SoCal trip this morning and had a great time at CanJam! Met some new people and saw some familiar faces from last year. What a great time and a great community!!! The amazing gear is only a fraction of the greatness of CanJam.
Will share some impressions when I can….
@robson, Ryan wasn’t there but I did get a chance to listen to the double sided Tungsten a couple times very briefly. It is definitely a can that I’m very interested in. Considering show conditions, the unfamiliar gear I heard it on and only a few minutes total time with it….big grain of salt. Bottom line is I thought it was really good, reminded me of the He-6se but warmer maybe? Great bass impact, good detail. The design is great as well, very comfortable, light weight and comes with a pretty nice cable. I would love to hear it on my setup… it definitively needs some juice to get it going! My initial thought is with the right gear this might be hard to beat at the price but may be a similar story to getting the most out of the Sus.
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When I saw its (in)efficiency rating that was my thought as well. Seems like you’d practically need a speaker amp to drive it, or a real beast of a headphone amp!
Nonetheless, an intriguing headphone…
Glad you had a blast! I’d love to go sometime, pretty do-able for us West Coasters! 
Have you tried aic-10 yet? The tubes in it change an absalite ton and can get super “tubey” when using shark tooth mullards or similar. May be woth a try if you are just playing around.
Didnt read far enough. I do think the detail of it is pretty highly tube dependant unforunately, but yah, its not quite the detail level of slmething like a wa33 elite (and i suspect 465 but would need to have one on a propper dac to know for sure). Mind if i ask what your go to amp for just raw technicalites is?
Also, after this weekend and generaly knowing your prefeences, you should check out the masskobo 465. I mean holy hell man.
Objectively, it can’t fully resolve un-dithered Redbook content, regardless of what tube you stick in it; it’s not even on the stage for raw technical competence.
Which is not to say it isn’t enjoyable.
It has its charm.
Just not $16-25K worth of it.
And driving Susvara, which is what most people seem to do with it, at anything even approaching enthusiastic levels, I can hear distortion in the bass (not very surprising, as it has relatively high distortion products … probably due to being NFB). Not everyone is that sensitive to distortion at -66 dB or so, but it bothers me (once I heard it, I couldn’t unhear it).
BUT, that same distortion also fattens up the Susvara’s rather limp bottom end, which seems to work for a lot of people. It’s just that I still hear it as distorted.
Benchmark HPA4.
I don’t enjoy listening to it. It’s dry and sterile. And I think the interface is annoying and unnecessary (some of the features the touch screen enables are only necessary because it has a touch screen!). But on raw technical grounds, none of the boutique stuff measures up.
On a more REAL level … blending absolute raw-technical performance with engagement and enjoyability, then it’s the Zähl HM-1. Nothing else has come close. Though if I didn’t have an HM-1, I wouldn’t turn my nose up at a Holo Audio Bliss.
(And to be clear, I buy for enjoyability not objective measurements - but there are limits here).
Zero interest.
And not just because I am NOT looking to buy more gear.
I’d sell it all, keep the N30LE, HM-1, a couple of dyamics and one planar, and the Linn source (since it drives my speakers too), before I go there. Hell, I’d HAVE sold it all if the market wasn’t so depressed.
Remember … I’m at a point where I might well trade the simplicity of an iPhone/AirPods Pro 2 … for all the other traits in everything else I have/could have … simply because it’s smaller, is reliable, doesn’t require constant fannying around. And then just do live concerts/performances and my speaker rig for everything else.
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I was so excited to try the HM-1 at CanJam but alas, I could not hear what all of the fuss is about. I suspect between the background noise, not really knowing what I am listening for, and my general inexperience, it was too much to ask of it. Maybe someday I’ll be lucky enough to try it in a quiet environment. My current price cap is a lot closer to $2k anyway.
The one amp that did impress me at CanJam was the Ampsandsound Mogwai. I’m not even sure what it was exactly. I just know I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face. And that was after trying the Kenzie so there’s something about the Mogwai’s specific sound that I was really enjoying. I need to confirm that experience in a quiet space with my own music before plunking down that much coin.
Also does anyone have any suggestions on amps with a similar sound to the Mogwai?
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Not everything works for everybody, nor should people expect it to - the HM-1 may just not be for you. Nothing wrong with that.
I stopped trying to assess gear at shows/meets* unless in quiet-rooms/booths (or in rare cases for IEMs or closed-back cans - when I still used them). At best I could tell if something was egregiously bad OR was going to need proper listening in more suitable environment to make a determination. Even then, you can’t rule out some non-obvious setting being off/changed by another listener and no-one noticing (had it happen to me at Dan Clark’s table one year).
If tube amps are primarily what floats your boat you’re unlikely to find the HM-1 that interesting - as while it does have a holographic sense to its rendering (which is normally a “tube thing”) it is otherwise not even vaguely tube-like.
If you do re-audition an HM-1 at some point, in a properly quiet location, play with the Class A/Class A Servo setting. If you don’t hear a difference between those settings, you’re probably barking up the wrong tree anyway (and you almost certainly can’t do that in typical show conditions - I know I can’t).
*Anymore, I usually just use the time to talk to people I’ve not seen in a while, and geek out a bit - though I don’t go to many shows/meets these days anyway.
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Thanks, I agree. This was my first CanJam so definitely a learning experience. For instance, I could not tell the difference between Class A and Class A Servo on the HM-1.
Sometimes I’m in the mood for tubes and sometimes not. I’m really very much exploring. I find I really enjoy my Senn HD800S on tubes but so far prefer my LCD-5 off of solid state. It was the LCD-5 that I brought to CanJam hoping to find a an amp that paired particularly well, tube or not.
I had a similar bad setting experience at the ZMF booth. I was trying out the Atrium, which I ended up liking very very much, but at first it was too bassy with an unexpectedly small soundstage. Turns out someone left the crossfeed engaged on the amp.
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It’d be tough to do so in a show (or typical meet) environment.
I’m the same way.
Sadly there is no single, switchable, amplifier that does a sufficiently good job in both domains. The best attempts are still hybrids when they have their tubes engaged.
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I did hear the Mogwai with the Susvara. I believe what you just heard was tube saturation probably. It does a pretty decent job driving the Sus but if once you hear the saturation which @Torq perceives as distortion objectively, it can be a deal breaker for some. Others embrace it with gusto like what you experienced
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Might be the case with the Ampsandsound units that @AudioTool is talking about, but wasn’t the case with the AIC 10.
I know what tube saturation sounds like - I have various boxes that let you add it and adjust it, using actual tubes, to the signal chain.
That’s not what this was.
This was clearly a more fundamental harmonic distortion.
Besides, the tube on the AIC 10 is on the input/driver stage, so it’s not (or shouldn’t be) being run particularly hard.
That it was volume dependent, and only audible on inefficient headphones (Susvara, HE-6) strongly suggests it’s just the amplifier producing progressively higher levels of distortion as its power output goes up. That’s absolutely typical behavior for almost all amplifiers, especially those not running NFB.
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