Blog: Head-Fi CanJam London 2018 – Report

DACs & DAC / Amps

CanJam also hosted many DACs and DAC / Amps and the new product launch from Chord of course attracted the most attention. Below you can see Rob Watts with his new unit, the Mscaler that has an impressive 1 million taps.

This device can be a breakthrough in digital audio, and we will surely be watching it more closely soon.

Lieven gave it a try at the show and his first impressions are positive.

Another device we like from Chord is the Hugo 2, which is one of the favorite devices of Linus. I find it pretty bright and sharp though, but that’s just me. Yet, I don’t deny its fantastic technicalities.

The new Benchmark HPA4 also sounded incredibly good with the Meze Empyrean and it gave it more warmth.

The Chord Electronics DAVE and BLUE MKII are incredible when used together. More about these hopefully soon.

Cables

I tried some cables from Effect Audio with which we get along pretty well. Eric was at the EA booth and he’s a super guy to talk to.

I tried their Horus and I was blown away by the sound, even though the price is definitely less comforting. Also I tried the new cable Janus and despite being impressive from a technical standpoint, it wasn’t my type of sound. I also liked the Eros II very very much and I think it’s one of the best in its price range, if not the best. I still enjoy my Ares II as well. Expect a review dedicated to the Eros II soon though.

Lieven’s Show Notes

Canjam London 2018. We came, we saw, we listened. What a Canjam it was!

Why you say? Well, there a bunch of reasons: Visitor-wise this was the busiest Canjam I’ve been to and it had the most exhibitors and brands (not looking at High End Munich). There also were a whole bunch of new products and that’s always exciting.

So yes, I had a great time and for me personally these were the products that wowed me most

– The Jomo Audio Tango: A 6BA custom that performs at a very high level.

– The Jomo Audio Quatre: A hybrid with a filter system that sounds excellent.

– The Vision Ears Erlkönig in position 4: It seems I’m one of the few that prefer setting 4 but waw!

– The Effect Audio Horus: You’ll never ever need another cable.

– The entire JH Audio line-up: Oh my they’re all so incredibly good!! All award material.

– The Shanling IEM prototypes: Can’t say much more at his time or show pics, but very interesting!

– The Auris Audio Nirvana: Another sublime sounding Serbian amp.

– The Hifiman Ananda. The Edition X V2’s successor sounds even better, impressive.

– The Hifiman Susvara. My new favorite Hifiman!

– The Hifiman R2R DAP.  A back to basics DAP with incredible sound reproduction.

– The Cayin N8 TOTL DAP. A DAP that competes with the best of the best. Watch out Astell!

– The Audeze LCD MX-4 and Z4: Amazing series of headphone, I absolutely love them.

– The Astell&Kern SR15: The AK70II’s successor rises the level yet again.

– The Dekoni Blue: Nathan was right, one of the best Fostex mods.

– The Beyerdynamic Xelento: One of the best universal IEMs of all-time.

– The Inear SD5: The best universal of the SD series to me.

– The Chord Electronics Mscaler (1million taps!!): It redefines digital audio. Experience it!

– The Chord Electronics DAVE: Once you heard it you’ll want it.

– The Benchmark HPA-4: A very musical unit that sounded incredible with the Meze Empyrean

– The Meze Audio Empyrean: Together with the Utopia, my fav headphone for personal use.

– The Fiio FH5: An incredibly good sounding universal from Fiio, their best so far imo.

Yes, I know the list is rather long but that just shows how good the show was. Hats off to the Head-Fi Canjam London 2018 team!

SUMMARY

We enjoyed the show top to bottom and definitely recommend you to go and experience at least one Canjam if you have the chance. It’s the best show for crazy people like us and I will definitely try to go to more of them in the future. Again, thanks to every person that made this a real thing. We were impressed by a lot of high quality gear and to be honest we did not have time to listen to everything at the show.

Here are some more pics from Canjam London 2018. Enjoy and thank you for reading.