This Week In Headphoolia #20: CANJAM (and Winter) Are Coming (up to 7/9/17)

All apologies for the delay in publication of this edition. I had assembled all the articles on time, but then pre-PrimeDay madness hit, and wasn’t able to post it by Sunday night. This only covers up to Sunday 7/9/17, so another edition will be posted by Sunday covering this week. A two for one special this week 🙂

Today’s “soundtrack” while preparing: I am riding an “Elephant” with White Stripes, playback through the Fiio X1 with the Philips SHP9500S open-back over-ears, which I’m finding, while not bad at all, they are definitely over-hyped in terms of sound. But then again, they are a sub-$60 over-ear headphone with long-time wearing comfort whose comfort puts to shame many much more expensive models…

CAUTION: this is posted earlier in the day than usual, which means my brain is “fresher”, which means a dramatic increase in bad puns and seques (plural noun per Bing) than usual 🙂

In this edition, I am grouping posts by headphone size, rather than drawing the line on video versus text-and-pictures. Let me know if you have a preference on groupings and categorizations 🙂

LONDON CAMJAM 2017 PREVIEW

Headfi is back with another studio production, a 52 minute video preview of the 2017 CanJAM in London. No, not Kentucky, London, England 🙂 You can also find it YouTube-embedded below…

DACs, AMPs, and DAPs

ArchiMago is back with another Dungeons and Measurements adventure, it’s MQA Filters on Mytek Brooklyn, followed by an opinion on various USB “things”.

AK’s KANN tank-DAP is expensive enough to justify a whole ecosystem of accessories, and Lachlan opines on a Miter case for it in this 5 minute video.

It’s a Mojo-Hugo-Chord discussion in a new nine minute video at the PhotoTristan YouTube.

OVER and ON-EARs

Headphone fans can often get lost in the music and inadvertently become night-owls or night-hawks depending on pers9onality 😉 Which brings us to a new set of measurements, this time at Inner Fidelity where Tyll measures and talks about alternative earpads for the two aforementioned Audioquest headphones.

The Sennheiser HD 800 has that “previous generation” flagship feeling that smartphone flagships get every year. Metal 571 is back with another take on the headphone in a new 15 minute video.

When an audio company has a name that reminds of triple-figure shoes, and a look that parallels the design language (sort of), they set price expectations. Which bring us to the Mitchell & Johnson (but no Murphy) MJ1 reviewed at Headfonia.

It’s ZMF time at PORTA FI where they talk about the Eikon and Atticus in a new 11 minute video, available in English and Russian as usual. A good way to practice either or both languages if you are trying to learn.

EARPHONES

If you like your teaware to be ceramic, you may also be interested to know that there are ceramics in some earphones. Which brings us to the RHA CL1 review at Headfonia. This earphone was announced a while back, but it’s finally rolling out.

Headfonia is launching a new (text) interview series, in this installment they are talking to the CEO and founder of 64 Audio.

Everything Zen, it’s the Zen 2.0 of Venture Electronics, getting tested out at Headfonics.

You can find zen at a campfire, which brings us to a new review of the Campfire Audio Jupiters, orbiting planet Headphone List.

Camping is also a source of unexpected adventures and dangers, sometimes you may just have to be a lionheart to survive, which brings us to a new review of Effect Audio’s Lionheart at Headfonics.

The resurgence of (actual) earbuds means more companies are brave enough to revisit or promote their products in this frequently shunned by audiophiles category. Which brings us to a review of the Penon BS1 at The Headphone List.

Chi-fi is one of the big themes of the last couple of years in the world of head-audio, and KZ is making waves with some of their models. The ZST (they are also saving money by using shorter model names) has been reviewed at Carrot Reviews.

On the other end of the price spectrum, you try to justify higher prices by adding subscripts and superscripts in the model number, and trying to rename the product segment. It is the Audeze iSine 20 planar earphones (one way to side-step the “Is it In-Ears?” debate) getting reviewed at The Headphone Guru.

Lachlan opines on two things in this new 5 minute video, it is Audio Technica LS50 iS vs LS 70 iS. “iS” in this case in not image Stabilization 🙂

PORTAFI is back with another earphone review, it is an 8 minute video on the Trinity Vyrus v2 IEMs.

We had some action here too, a text and pictures unboxing of the Klipsch S4A (II) earphones.

LEARNINGS and OPINIONS

AudioHolics has a new primer on the three heads of the dragon. Ooops, this is not a Game Of Thrones post. On three methods for Immersive 3D Audio 🙂

We mentioned this in a previous Headfoolia edition when it came out, now it is Audioholics’s turn to opine on the price versus audio quality research paper.

The latest edition of TWiT’s Home Theater Geeks is a 71 minute episode focused on music, with the host talking to composer John Keane about all things music. You can also find it YouTube-embedded below for your convenience…