Canjam SoCal Headphone and Audio Show 2019 Part 2

[amirm]

Then I went to a talk about streaming that was organized by the LA Audio Society:

Steve (?) Levy on the left is the president. The person in black was Ying Kit Lee which is one of their technical gurus. By our standards, he needs more education. The other two folks were from Qobuz. The first one is David Solomon who I know from Peachtree and is a "good guy" in the business. They emphasized their advantage of providing download and streaming.

Some in the audience including Steve Levry questioned fidelity of a streaming file versus local playback. The panel did not help with their answers, leaving some doubt as to differences. The question also got muddy as sometimes what they stream is not what they offer for download.

Not very exciting session although it was nice of the LA audio society to organize it.

 

[amirm]

Speaking of LA Audio Society, they had a room with drinks and munchies. Was hard to believe they were offering it all for free to anyone as most people were thinking it was for special people or something. I took full advantage of it and was so happy they were kind enough to provide it.

 

[amirm]

The new headphone company out of India, Kaldas Research was showing their electrostatic headphones that are near production driven by this Stax amp clone:

They use proper instrumentation to design them but I was let down when the designer told me they don't follow the Harman curve.

I did like the sound though but as with all electrostats, I was still able to get severe distortion above certain level.

 

[amirm]

The next panel was a Q/A with Jude from head-fi, Rob Watts (consultant to Chord), Dr. Sean Olive and someone Dan Clark from Mr. Speaker.

The most amazing thing I heard was Rob Watts saying (again after yesterday's session) that he can measure and hear distortions at 300 dB down. Let me say that again, he is saying he can easily identify differences that are 300 dB lower than reference. That is 50 bits of dynamic range!!! Not 24, not 32, but 50 bits. He says this is impossible but that he hears it. Right.....

 

[amirm]

The HyperX Cloud Orbit

was an active headphone with head tracker:

Since it is targeted at gaming, it comes with a nice feeling mic with a pop filter:

I didn't like the sound that much with the demo material they had on hand.

 

[amirm]

These others were not hooked up to anything that played music and i could not get the attention of the people to show it to me:

 

[amirm]

Just so you get a good feel of the reception I get at shows, here is how this guy at Cardas reacted:

 

[amirm]

So that's it guys. I am home and a bit tired. I owe you guys the write up of Dr. Sean Olive on headphone system measurements which will take some time to put together.

 

[Music1969]

The most amazing thing I heard was Rob Watts saying (again after yesterday's session) that he can measure and hear distortions at 300 dB down. Let me say that again, he is saying he can easily identify differences that are 300 dB lower than reference. That is 50 dB of dynamic range!!! Not 24, not 32, but 50 bits. He says this is impossible but that he hears it. Right.....

Any change of expression on Dr Olive's face when this was mentioned?

Would have been great if there was a video recording of the Q&A.

 

[Crane]

So what was your fav headphones from the bunch?

 

[amirm]

Any change of expression on Dr Olive's face when this was mentioned?

Not during the talk but after we chatted about Rob's comment.

Someone was recording the session I think. I could not get a direct answer as to whether they will post them or not.

I did make an audio recording of Rob Watts' presentation yesterday and took shots of all of his slides. So I will transcribe what I can later.

 

[amirm]

So what was your fav headphones from the bunch?

Focal Stellia had the most consistently good performance. Not a big endorsement though as it is hard to hear headphones in these places with so much noise and lack of control of what is being played. I did not think I would do as much headphone testing so did not bring my own source. That was a mistake.

Jude from Head-fi said that Stellia had followed Harman's curve but I have not seen that verified (have not looked either).

 

[amirm]

Speaking of Jude, we finally met face to face and it was very friendly on both sides.

 

[suttondesign]

Ampsandsound LeeLoo Monos:



The concept of "monoblocks" as applied to headphone amplifiers seems odd to me with two independent volume controls and such. It is not like we can't get enough power in one box. These things are expensive too at US $5,500.

Call a spade a spade: this is the dumbest thing ever.

 

[agtp]

I could get the amp to distort fairly easily on some material. At $3,800, it will be something I would spend money on.

 

[amirm]

?!

Ooops. The word "not" was left out. Corrected.

 

[suttondesign]

I was drawn to this manly desk because a guy sitting there listening commented on it having a feedback knob and him liking it before max. So I sat down and played with.


View attachment 28236

What, no orgasmatron to go with it?

 

[phoenixdogfan]

If Redscape offered custom HRTF's AND head tracking on a virtual Windows sound card and/or plugin, they would have an absolute slam dunk. Alas, all these sound virtualizers require either an expensive boat anchor of a box that's basically a dedicated unitasking computer, or, if they do run on a PC, they lack either head tracking or custom HRTF or both.
,
If somebody could offer a custom HRTF measurement made with your phone, and combine that with head tracking and have the main program run as a VST plugin on J River or Foobar, they'd really have something.

 

[restorer-john]

So that's it guys. I am home and a bit tired.

Thanks for all the pictures, effort and commentary, Amir.

It's nice to be able to see what is on offer in the US.

 

[flipflop]

Jude from Head-fi said that Stellia had followed Harman's curve but I have not seen that verified (have not looked either).

The expression "following the Harman curve" too often gets casually thrown around like it's no big deal. It's akin to saying a pair of speakers measure perfectly flat in an anechoic chamber. Complete bonkers claim.
Stellia have bloated upper bass and a recessed treble response:
https://www.0db.co.kr/index.php?mid=REVIEW_0DB&category=182&document_srl=647940
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/focal/stellia