Report: Canjam Europe / Essen 2016 Part 3 + Best of show winners

Disclaimer: Headfonia is media partner of Canjam Europe / Essen. The community area was “organized” by the Headfonia and Canjam Europe team. Canjam Europe isn’t related to the Head-Fi Canjam events in any way, just to make this clear (again.) Part one is here and Part two here

Canjam Europe 2016 – Part 3

It’s the event a lot of European personal audio fans have been looking out for the last few months. Canjam Europe delivered with yet another successful edition, one that went by way too fast. The list with the exhibiting brands again was very long but we managed to get almost everything done over two full days. In total I took about 700 pictures at the show, of which you’ll get to see around 200 in this picture report. Because of the large number of pictures, the report will be split up in three parts and it will be published over the same amount of days.

And so the report continues with the next brand!

Pathos

I found this amplifier at the Grado booth where it was doing its magic on the new 2000E. That’s the digital volume control you’re seeing at the front. The Pathos sounded very good with the Grados but I couldn’t try it with any other headphones. I definitely want to try this amplifier again. Can an amp look prettier?

Pioneer

Pioneer’s booth had a couple of their latest DAPs all set up with their SE Master 1 headphones. While I couldn’t really try the DAP at the show, the Master 1, just like last year didn’t really impress.

It seems I also don’t get a long with Pioneer’s designer, I really don’t like the styling of the DAPs and the Master 1.

Pono

We did a guest review of the Pono player last year or so. I have to say I only very rarely see the Pono pop up in the personal audio community. On 2nd hand forums on the other hand…

This was the only one I found at the show and it was at the Sieveking stand.

Pro-Ject Audio

You might remember my article about getting started with vinyl. You might also remember the turntable giveaway we did. In both articles it was the Austrian Pro-Ject audio that supplied the turn table.

Pro-Ject is big and almost all TTs used at the show were from their Line-up. Above you can see their awesome Star Wars hologram vinyl.

Pro-Ject has all kinds of turntables in all price ranges. The above shown RPM Carbon goes for about €2000. Did you know that the Pro-Ject RPM 3 Carbon won last years‘ EISA award for best turntable and that it was also awarded with the Red Dot Award for its outstanding design this year? Great stuff!

Qobuz

I only started using Tidal’s streaming service very recently but I have to admit that streaming on your DAP at home is almost as good as it gets. Huge libraries and top quality sound. Do you need more? Qobuz is Tidal’s French competitor and after a week of testing I can clearly see advantages it has over Tidal, like the larger library. But Tidal is easier to use and after only one week of testing has a slightly better SQ. Both “apps” can be installed to your phone and Android DAP if they allow it and I’ve been using it myself with the Cayin i5 and the Fiio X7. I hope to see Tidal soon on AK!

Audionext

These Germans always have the biggest booth at the show and they have a lot of very interesting brands.

At this table they were especially promoting the Radius hp-twf41, a two-driver Japanese universal inear. You will see more if this unit on HFN…

They don’t look sexy though, at least not to me.

RHA

We already reported about RHA’s newest creations in our IFA 2016 report but the new gear certainly deserves a second look.

Even though the new gear is very impressive, the their “older” units like the T10 still are very good as well. The injection molded universals IEMS simply fit and sound great.

The DACAMP L1 still isn’t finished and RHA is still working on getting the final tuning right. They were also talking about changing the volume control.

The CL750 is the “old” 750‘s successor and I absolutely prefer this new version over the old one.

Star of the RHA booth of course was the new Ceramic CL1 inear. It is small as you can see in the picture, fits perfectly and sounds extremely good with both cable types and in balanced and SE mode. The CL1 uses a new type of SMMCX cable made just for the CL1 so if you’re in to aftermarket cables you’ve got a slight issue.

Rhines Custom Monitors

Felix’s stand this year seemed smaller than the years before and they didn’t bring their big demo station to the show. The Rhines 7 was introduced last year already and they didn’t really bring anything new to the show.

Rhines offers a lot face plate options for their customs but I especially like their awesome wood designs, like on my Stage 5

Rhines is big in Asia and according to Felix the monitor in the picture below, is a perfect example of what that market likes to buy: Wood and gold. Yes, real gold.

RME

You might not really know RME but I spotted this brand and this unit at High End in Munich already. It seems the ADI-2 PRO is finally ready for the market.

The ADI-2 PRO is a high-end AD/DA converter, a double headphone amplifier, A USB DAC, a high-end AD/DA frontend and headphone amp for iPad / iPhone, a multi-format converter (AES, SPDIF, ADAT) with monitoring function, a DSD record and playback solution and an AD/DA frontend for audio measurement at up to 768 kHz sample rate. Phew! Only €1599 Euro.

Yes, another see-through top. Love it.

Rooms

I’m a big fan of the Sieveking Ohm headphone stand but they’re a tad expensive around €100. The German Rooms also has gorgeous wooden headphone stands and they’re reasonably cheaper. Check them all out here.

The report continues on Page TWO, after the click HERE or the jump below