I’ve been happily burrowing down the audiophile rabbit hole for the last year or so, and this past weekend marked my very first CanJam – the top personal audio trade show that brings everything from ultra-budget bangers to unattainable $5,200 flagships straight to the public.
And though it was a blast to finally tear my ears to shreds with all the exotic stuff I’d previously only read (dreamt?) about, the weekend also delivered a few disruptive realisations – some truths that will undoubtedly shape how I think about my headphone and IEM reviews moving forward.
Here are my four key takeaways from my first CanJam…
Everyone hears differently
The guys from Headphones.com are killing it at the moment, and their YouTube channel is the place to go if you want excellent reviews and digestible takes on the cutting edge of personal audio science and discourse. All unbiased, all super-informed, all charming and funny.
And Griffin Silver (aka Listener) and Cameron Oatley (GoldenSound) brought that winning brand to CanJam with a Saturday seminar named Why Can’t We Just Agree What a Headphone Sounds Like?
In a nutshell: Our individual anatomy affects how we all hear headphones and IEMs; headphones can physically produce different sounds on different heads due to seal breaks, clamping pressure, and pad material; frequency response graphs are not as accurate in describing sound profiles as I thought; and individual tonal preferences vary widely.
Perhaps unintuitive, definitely disruptive and no doubt prompting many to question their recent $$$ headphone purchase, Griffin and Cameron’s talk was the perfect palate cleanser before getting into the main hall and listening to the ‘best’ IEMs and headphones currently on sale.
But my main takeaway from it was actually really positive and empowering. Since everyone hears headphones differently, you no longer have to doubt yourself when someone louder with more expensive gear than you dumps on your faves. Who cares?! You’re literally hearing different things.
It’s just the message needed to encourage more people into this awesome hobby, and to reassure the ones that are deep in that their take is as legit as the next person’s (but no more so).
The levelling factor in this hobby
One of my goals for the weekend was to get ears on the Subtonic Storm IEM – a $5,200 earphone that has been described by many as the best IEM in the world, including by the excellent reviewer Theo Lee, aka Precogvision.
But my experience with the Storm was far from great.
Sure, they look amazing, and if you’re after a reassuring heft to accompany that eye-watering price, they deliver. Oh, and they sound amazing… but I wasn’t really able to enjoy any of that. Because my god were they uncomfortable!
These chonky IEMs are unvented, so as soon as I wedged them into my ears, there was an uncomfortable pressure build-up in my ears. Moving my jaw only made it worse, so I really wasn’t able to concentrate long enough to fully evaluate the IEMs (for a deep dive, definitely check out Precog’s video on them, as he’s an incredibly knowledgeable reviewer who’s hard to please).
Bottom line: I enjoyed the $100 bass cannons that are the Final E4000 more than the best IEM in the world. And that’s because they offer elite comfort. I’m not saying their sound profiles are comparable – they really aren’t. But none of that magic sauce matters if you can’t bear to listen to them for more than 1 minute.
The trend to neutral is good for the hobby
There are many weird, wild and wonky tunings to be found in headphones, and you may have found one that blows your hair back (I certainly have – I love the big bad bass of the FiiO FT1 and the treble forward Binary EP321). However, a few releases in recent years have aimed for genuine neutrality over fun colourisations – eschewing artificial treble boosts used to give the sense of detail or lower-bass scoops used to accentuate mid-bass punch – and I think it’s the healthiest thing to happen to the audiophile hobby.
The CrinEar Reference IEM, the HEDD D1 headphone, and now the Status Pro X GoldenSound Edition all largely prioritise neutrality. And the latter, which released last week, may offer the best version of neutral for the majority of listeners out there.
Why? Well, when tuning this wireless earphone, Cameron Oatley didn’t just lick his thumb, raise it to the wind and ‘aim for neutral’.
He and his Headphones.com crew, with the help of Imperial College London, measured their individual head-related transfer functions (how their specific head, ear, and torso shapes affect sound before it reaches their eardrums) and compared them to the Brüel & Kjær 5128’s own acoustic profile.
This allowed them to derive a true 5128-specific neutral target. Cameron could then tune and EQ the Pro X on the 5128 simulator until its output matched that baseline, resulting in a genuine neutral response.
What does that mean for us, the punters? Well, I’ve been using the GoldenSound Pro X non-stop since I got a pair last Thursday, and it’s easy to love. The tuning is clean, clear, rich and beautifully balanced. There are zero awkward elevations, and vocals and instruments sound like they do in the real world. Plus there’s a healthy wad of bass, because people love bass.
It’s actually a really cool product, and I think it’s well worth the $280 asking price. The only issue is that you can’t EQ the GoldenSound profile on the app to further dial in your personalised neutral. But you can still EQ the original Pro X tuning that comes with this model, so overall it’s still very much worth it.
Just before my stormy encounter, I had spent some time at the Noble stall, checking out some new releases and their flagship model.
After gritting my teeth through a few songs with the new $325 Vanguard (dial them upper mids DOWN!), then regaining my faith with the great $699 Iris, I finally got to try out the slightly more expensive Noble Kronos.
Coming in at $4,500, the Kronos are a chonkfest, housing nine of the finest drivers known to man… and I loved it. Maybe it’s the distinct lack of upper mid peak that was so disturbing in the Vanguard, or I just vibed with the lower frequency warmth and spot on midrange… whatever it was, I was finding lesser known details in the same test tracks that I had been listening to all day, and the whole experience brought a smile to my face.
But can you really put a $4,500 price tag on a sound profile? Well, yeah, clearly… but does it make sense?! That’s less clear.
I’m going to write a piece about putting a price on a sound, but for now I can only imagine that if the Kronos is your ideal weird, wonky and wonderful, then that’s all that matters. For me, I think personal audio is at its best when it’s open to all with its prices, encouraging people in, not warding them off.
So yeah, the Kronos was the best thing I heard all weekend… but I’ll probably only ever hear it again if it’s at next year’s CanJam London. And that’s a bummer. At least I’ll have the Pro X in the meantime.
