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Canjam SoCal Headphone and Audio Show 2019

amirm

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So I finished my first day at the Canjam southern california show. I attended three talks and spent the rest of the day mingling among the vendors and visitors.

It is a relaxing show for me compared to the massive ones I usually attend. There was one hall and a few small rooms around it and that was it. Here is the major hall:
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I was disappointed to just get a wrist-band for admission. No name badge so no one could tell who you were. I had to keep introducing myself and handing out business cards. Manufactures couldn't tell if I was a customer or not without such a name tag. Exhibitors all name tags. Don't know why could not give visitors some, even if it were hand written.
 
First booth I stopped at was the friend and good folks at Matrix Audio. This was their first CanJam show. I got to meet Cao who is our member here representing the company:
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He is the middle guy pointing to the front. Funny thing the guy sitting next to me was trying to convince me to buy one of their DACs. :)

We had a nice chat about their company, how it got started, etc.

This is the Matrix Pro X that I am supposed to receive soon for review:

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Mr. Speaker and HeadAmp shared a separate room. I could not get a seat at MrSpeakers so have to see if I can remedy that tomorrow:
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You can see the Schiit Yggdrasil DAC. And is that a Woo Audio tube amp?


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Chord products were everywhere. By far the most popular DAC/amp used at the show:

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Listened to this Stax. Just like my tube unit, it runs out steam and gets pretty distorted above average level:

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This GS-X Mini looked very nice but seem to run out of power with the headphones attached to it:


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Had a great chat with a guy at Astell and Kern. I had no idea they were a top-end brand from iRiver. When I was at Microsoft we worked very closely with them to improve their early MP3 players.

The had a couple of new units at the show. Boy are these beefy and chunky portable players:
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Sennheiser had a dedicated room for their statement amp and headphone, the $55,000 Orpheos. Asked the guy who had bought it and he said most were sold into China:

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I heard it at another show but did not do anything for me so I did not bother to wait in line to listen to it.
 
Went to Hifiman suit a few times but could not get in initially but shot some pictures:
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Benchmark HPA4 also made the rounds at some suites as you see above.

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First booth I stopped at was the friend and good folks at Matrix Audio. This was their first CanJam show. I got to meet Cao who is our member here representing the company:
View attachment 28048

He is the middle guy pointing to the front. Funny thing the guy sitting next to me was trying to convince me to buy one of their DACs. :)

We had a nice chat about their company, how it got started, etc.

This is the Matrix Pro X that I am supposed to receive soon for review:

View attachment 28049

Definitely not Cao's first CanJam. He was in Singapore in March, I spoke to him there and then and breached the idea of sending their stuff over to ASR there as well. You can ask if he recalls that though. ( I was the guy who has the HPA-3B he had on the desk.)

Maybe they are there under their own flag for the first time, as in Singapore, they were under Shenzhen Audio's booth.


Oh forgot to add, if you can get into a short enough queue, go audition the Raal SR1a headphones and share what you think of it.
If there is a unique headphone worth your time to check out, that's probably the one.
 
Chord's booth was next door:
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You can see Mr. Watts himself almost nodding off :).

Here is the BLU MKII with M Scaler built-in:

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These ZMF Auteur Silks headphones were in a lot of suites:
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Shenzhen Audio folks were there representing a number of brands from SMSL to Topping:

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They were super helpful and friendly and gave me a grand tour of everything.
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This P1 amp sounded pretty powerful and good! The D2 price is way up there ($1600?).

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These Beyerdynamic T1 headphones sounded pretty energetic with that SMSL P1.

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SMSL M500 balanced DAC:
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And M300:
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This little SMSL DP3 player and streamer seemed pretty cheap for $299:

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There were a few local dealers showing some gear. This was from one of them which I think is also the distributor for some of the brands.

Pathos Acoustics InPol Ear. It is a hybrid design and sounded good with the ZMF headphones:
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The DP3 has been around for a while now.

I am actually surprised that no one has sent one in for you to review yet.

What I have seen on the interwebs is that it seems to perform pretty well, just software glitches that bugged some users. That was the early months, no idea if things have been sorted out since.
 
I should say as a routine, folks would not give up their seats easily. Many would sit there and not move! So despite the low attendance of the show, it was not easy to get an audition.
 
Our favorite vendor, Synergistic Audio was there I think selling some kind of table to put your gear on. Supposedly, it stops the stray electrons from leaking below your gear (kidding):
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They did not have many takes though as you can tell by the folks reading their mail or whatever on the phone.
 
I should say as a routine, folks would not give up their seats easily. Many would sit there and not move! So despite the low attendance of the show, it was not easy to get an audition.

That is generally the case. A bit of eye contact with the booth operators does help sometimes.... They will politely prompt those at the front if they are talking longer than what's sensible. :p
 
Our favorite vendor, Synergistic Audio was there I think selling some kind of table to put your gear on. Supposedly, it stops the stray electrons from leaking below your gear (kidding):
View attachment 28095

They did not have many takes though as you can tell by the folks reading their mail or whatever on the phone.

Good to see that headphone folks are mostly less susceptible/receptive to such nonsense....
 
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