Canjam Essen ’15: Pleasure Overload – Part 2

This is part 2 of the Canjam Europe 2015 Picture report. Don’t forget to check out part 1 HERE and Part 3 HERE.

iBasso

A couple of weeks ago iBasso surprised the world by discontinuing the famous DX90 and by replacing it with the DX80. Audiogarden(again) brought a prototype of the brand new DX80 to the show and on Sunday I found some time to listen to it. Sound wise I heard a clear improvement over the DX90 (more neutral tonality, clearder sound and a wider sound stage) but the User Interface was pretty horrible. I really hope they will work on that before it gets released to the market. Also interesting was the new P5 with its dedicated Power Supply and the D14 Bushmaster. We’ve already arranged a review samples for a test. Yay.

Final Audio

This is a special brand. A friend of mine used to be a Final dealer and I had the opportunity to listen to every single unit of their product-line. Unfortunately it’s one of the brands I just can’t get a connection with but I know a lot of people like them, so this is especially for them.

GEEK

While I’m not a fan of the Geek Out series, I found the Pulse with the power supply quite enjoyable. This setup was actually paired with the 3D-printed headphone but I kind of connected my own set of headphones to it. They’re not the cheapest though.

GRADO

I don’t know a lot of people who own Grado headphones. To be honest I don’t have a single Grado headphone in my collection either but I have always wanted to get a simple SR60. That means that during Canjam is the only time of the year I get to listen to their headphones. And they’re so pretty! The Grado corner might just have had the most Sieveking headphone stands of the show. Gorgeous.

IFI

A lot of readers had been asking us to do a review on the famous IFI and that finally happened a few weeks ago. There always were a lot of people checking out the IFI gear and that comes as no surprise, if there’s one brand that listens to the input of the customers it’s IFI. While I personally prefer a different sound, there’s no denying the gear is well made and that the units produce a quality sound.

Inear

As usual Inear from Germany was present at the show and I always enjoy chatting with Marco. Inear of course is known for their excellent StageDiver series. I personally really like the SD2 and SD4 and I actually have the SD4 in my personal collection. The Stagedivers sound really good and they have the best fitting universals in the world, I kid you not. Inear couldn’t really tell me what they have planned for the next couple of months but I left a pair of fresh impressions with them. Stay tuned…

JDSLabs

I’ve been a long time fan of JDSLabs’s products. It all started with the CMOY amps you can see in one of the pictures. Then the C421 was introduced to the market and it sounded incredibly good. The O2 as you probably know wasn’t our favourite amplifier but their C5 and C5D units quite rocked and now they have the Element. Nathan reviewed it a while ago already and I kind of was jealous at him, luckily Headsound.de brought the Element with them. I have to say I liked it a lot, this thing sounds good and is so very powerful. It actually might need a lower gain stage for IEMS. Well done JDSLabs.

Lehmann

Mr. Lehmann and his son are always really kind and they have a very popular booth at each show as everyone wants to get a listen to their quality gear. I really should get to reviewing their amplifiers here on the site. Also, don’t forget to check out their Headphone Gallery!

Lotoo

The portable audio market is huge for the moment and it seems as if every single brand is releasing their own DAP. It’s hard to keep track of all the different units out there and yet almost everyone knows about the PAW Gold DAP. Probably because of its high bling factor. I actually was quite intrigued with it’s little brother, the PAW 5000. Forget about fancy DAPs, the PAW 5000 goes backs to basics and maybe that’s not such a bad idea. I really look forward to testing the little one soon. Does anyone have any experience with it?

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