I’m Sam, the managing partner of Dekoni Audio and I just had the pleasure of a second trip to Asia in about a months time. Having just a few weeks ago visited Tokyo for the Spring Headphone Festival Tokyo which was just one day (instead of two) hosted by Fujiya Avic at the famous Sun Plaza Nakano Hotel. It was bittersweet as this hotel will soon be demolished and remade, so this was likely the last time I will visit this hotel ever (the next show will be in Akihabara, which is the electronics/tech retail district of Tokyo. I’ve been to Tokyo quite a few times, but this one was rather special. It was the first time we were releasing a major headphone in the Japanese market directly through Dekoni’s channels (our distributor participated in the launch). Our previous launch was of the Fostex Dekoni Blue, but as Fostex is a Japanese company they retained the distribution of the headphone in Japan at launch, and Dekoni handled all other parts of the world.
We had a double booth at this show, and while our booth position was not the strongest for traffic, it did allow for really strong end-user engagement. Each listener got the chance to listen to a stock Beyerdynamic DT770-Pro 80 ohm and then one with each of our Elite (Sheepskin, Fenestrated Sheepskin, Hybrid, Velour) Series Pads, and then our Choice (Leather, Suede, Hybrid) Pads. Eiji, our brand manager from Miyaji Music (Japanese Dekoni Distributor), had the brilliant idea to have people not only listen to the 8 variations of the DT headphones but also vote for their favorite iteration. While there were votes cast for all of our materials, the overwhelming winner was the Elite Sheepskin model. (insert picture) This was great fun, and I think the addition of the voting poll was a great opportunity for visitor engagement and feedback At our second listening station, we had the new Dekoni x Hifiman Cobalt Headphones set up. Featuring Hifiman’s new Carbon Coated Dynamic driver, we asked attendees to listen and enjoy these mid-range focused headphones. The feedback for this was also overwhelmingly positive. We’re very excited to be launching hard with listening stations in Fujiya Avic and E-earphone early next month (July, 2023).