Day 1
Welcome back for our continuing coverage of CanJam SoCal 2022. We would like to extend special thanks to our good friend Walter Liederman of Underwood HiFi, https://www.underwoodhifi.com/, the best place to find high-end audio at affordable prices, for his magnanimous support in sponsoring our show coverage.
Exciting times in California. My first trip back since 2019 since the Pandemic caused cancellations and people not going to shows. Ethan and Jude along with Joe Cwik, Brian Murphy, and Warren Chi, some of my closest friends in the industry, went all out on a show for the ages, wall to wall attendees lined up at booths and rooms with people in amazement at the sheer number of products being offered.
Underwood Hifi sponsored the show for us, and we, in turn, are one of the CanJam sponsors who love attending. Gary Alan Barker and Kevin Venable did most of our coverage while I said hello to our sponsors and listened to some ground-shaking gear, much of which is from another league altogether. I felt stronger than at my last two shows and I am back in full swing and looking forward to the remainder of this year for shows, as well as, the next CanJam in NYC in February.
This year I took a lot of pictures to document the show while my team did the coverage. So for the first day, I shot with the Leica Q2 using the color mode, and on the second day, I did a black and white pictorial with amazing people shots and attendees listening to document the record attendance and largest CanJam ever done. So please enjoy these reports thanks to my friend Walter from Underwood for sponsoring us and the great folks I got to see and the great gear they were showing.
Focal and their team were here to showcase their new Focal Utopia 2022. I have been working on a full review and will have that published shortly. Amazing detail and priced at $5000, it has one of the very best treble high-ends I have ever experienced with amazing transparent bass and mid-range. Easy to drive and sounds spectacular.
One of my favorite closed-back headphones the beautiful Focal Stellia priced at $3K US makes for a balanced and terrific closed headphones for those times you want to be alone. The beautiful copper finish makes this a beautiful headphone to look at and it has an uncompromised sound than delivers the ultimate in transparency.
Our friend Miki was showing the Earman system made in Chicago and designed in Serbia by legendary designer Miki Trosic. This affordable stack brings the listener to complex listening satisfaction for under $3000 with DAC, amp, Music streamer, and power supply.
My good friend Jerry Harvey was showing the 16 driver Sharona which was incredible. Priced at $2500 it is perfect. Jerry also did a seminar and showed me how he tunes earpieces for the pros with his magic box and software. He took a stock Roxanne and tuned each driver individually and showed me how he can make the perfect earpiece. I listened to both the stock and the tuned versions. Jerry’s tuning took less than 10 minutes and the Roxanne was amazingly improved once tuned.
Our good friend Jose joined Drew’s staff and worked this show and was exhausted after the show.
The Focal Utopia 2022 was amazing and went home with me for review. $5000 US and true reference caliber. Above Drew was showing it with the dCS Lina system priced at $29500 plus the $5K Utopia made for true reference sound. Look for my full review with the same system as the Lina is my reference system here at home.
Pro-Ject had a turntable and preamp with cartridge and a headphone amp. The complete system I heard was dead silent with its moving coil cartridge. Listening to Sting sounded amazing and priced at $3200 this is a killer system.
Jonathan, the distributor for various products with his beautiful girlfriend was showing the Italian-made Riviera hybrid 10-watt amplifier priced at $18900. With a Bartok DAC using a Hifiman Susvara I borrowed from Moon Audio it sounded the best of what I heard at the show. The 10 watts drove the Susvara to unlimited heights not previously heard, the power is amazing and the sound is killer. A must listen for anyone looking for the ultimate in sound from the Susvara, the Rivera drove it easily.
Yongse IEMs based in the San Francisco area had a wide variety of their IEMs in all price ranges to show.
Our good friends at HeadAmp had a booth and a room showcasing all their terrific amplifiers and headphones. Both the room and booth were packed all weekend and the great team Justin Wilson had on hand were busy all weekend.
Nura, an Australian company, were showcasing their excellent IEMs for the first time in the US.
Jerry Harvey was doing his seminar on his individual driver technology. Jerry can fine-tune each individual driver in any earpiece to make it perfect. Using a software program with a magic box for under $900 US you can tune each of your IEMs for a perfect monitor. The sound is incredible, I experienced it with Roxanne.
Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of our extensive in-depth coverage of CanJam SoCal 2022 provided to you thanks to our good friend Walter Liederman of Underwood HiFi, https://www.underwoodhifi.com/, the best place to find high-end audio at affordable prices.
Want to join discussion?
Feel free to contribute!