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Hey, Dekoni Fans! It’s Dylan, the Product Manager for Dekoni Audio. Time has come and gone, and another CanJam is in the books! Nestled in the middle of the industrial district of Irvine, California, we experienced a show for the history books. With audiophile juggernauts duking it out on the show floor with their new flagships, the impressions grabbed at the show will be talked about for months to come.

Meze Elite

Unfortunately, our friends at Meze Audio were unable to attend CanJam due to travel restrictions. Thankfully, our friends at Headphones.com and Bloom Audio, had the Elite available for listening. Located at the next booth over from Dekoni sat a Meze Elite and as you can tell, I couldn’t resist the urge to take a listen. I had just ten seconds and holy warmth Batman! The low end was there and in force. If I had to choose though, I would grab an OG Empyrean over the Elite as my Meze headphone of choice just based on first impressions.

Dan Clark Stealth

As someone who personally knows Dan Clark, he’s definitely got an interesting brain to pick. He is always coming up with something new that benefits the headphone industry as a whole. At Dekoni we personally use his patent pending reusable adhesive for our Aeon Flow ear pads. With the Stealth, he hasn’t stopped innovating. I took about a two minute listen to these babies at the Headphones.com booth.

When you first pick up the headphone you can’t help but look into the ear cup to see the shape of the metamaterials resting on the dust cover. Taking that first listen, I noticed the phenomenal detail emerging from the sound signature. Unfortunately, the sound signature of the headphone is not exactly for me as the mids were recessed, and I felt the vocals of the test track were hiding behind the overall mix. It could have just been the track, but I hope to order these headphones soon and get on with a pad rolling adventure. 

Audeze LCD-5

Let’s talk about the most sought-after headphone at the show. Audeze had two listening stations for the LCD-5 and throughout the entire day, both of them always had a line. People were lined up thirty minutes before the show started on day two since it was so hard to get a listening session in on day one. 

Fortunately for myself, I had an exhibitor badge. This allowed me to sneak up to the Audeze booth before the show opened and grab about two tracks of listening. To preface this impression, Planar technology is very mature in the headphone market at this point. I believe Audeze has kept up with their formula and has taken the time to refine the headphone shell that houses their planar driver. It sounded like an LCD and the real standout was just how much lighter it was than previous versions of their LCDs. If you know what an LCD sounds like and appreciate it, definitely grab yourself an LCD-5. For me, I’m happy with our modded LCD 2C for the time being.

Audeze CRBN

Not pulling any punches at the show, Audeze also brought their entirely new Electrostatic headphones. The CRBN is based on a headphone specifically designed for UCLA for use with MRI machines. This was definitely my favorite headphone of the show. Bruno Mars, 24k Magic… 

The imaging of the track was outstanding, it was detail rich, and most important of all; It did not lack low-frequency content. I was in bliss with the CRBN and hope to thank Sankar personally for developing such a great-sounding headphone. It one hundred percent fits my ears’ frequency response.

Dekoni Booth Overview

Okay now that we got the flagship drooling out of the way, let’s talk about the show in general.

Since the Backstreet Boys Reunion Tour is still going on, everyone thought the attendance would be lacking severely. I can confirm, it wasn’t as small as everyone thought it would be. The Dekoni Audio booth stayed busy for the most part both days. People enjoyed listening to our extensive collection of audiophile favorites.

The star at our booth this year was the Sony Z1R, it’s surprising how many people haven’t heard the headphone personally. Sony I’m gonna call you out on this one, get your flagships into the hands of the people, you won’t regret it. Pad preference on the MDR-Z1R varied greatly, but overall the Hybrid and Sheepskin were the most liked sound signature.

The second favorite at our booth was the Sennheiser HD800, commonly mistaken by attendees as being the HD800S. Sorry guys! Maybe I will trade our HD800 for the HD800s, but today is not the day. Most people agreed that our pads on the HD800, Elite Velour being the style I had attached, made the sound signature significantly better by reducing sibilance or piercing high-frequency content. Also cited was the increased comfort offered because of the increase of depth and the memory foam we use inside of our ear pads.

Other notable feedback from people stopping by was the head-turning blue flannel pads I had on display. I had brought our limited edition holiday prototype to the show, and the reactions were overwhelmingly positive. People liked the idea that we are exploring new options for materials and colors. As the industry leader in ear pad tech, I expect our competitors to follow the leader when we release these for the holiday. The headphone industry will be better off for it. Available for the holiday season will be our red & green as well as blue flannel styles. We are only manufacturing two hundred and fifty sets of each color and once they are gone, that’s it! They will be in our almost universal Beyerdynamic DT style which can also fit a wide variety of other headphones.

Learning From our Customers

Trade shows aren’t always just us teaching the convention goers but alternatively, it’s enthusiasts teaching us. Interesting headphones always flow past our booth but most interesting of all was the Sennheiser HD540. This baby doesn’t have much support anymore and owners of this legendary headphone are always scrounging for new ear pads. Well, today I’m happy to announce that our round Hifiman and TH900 ear pads fit the mounting ring for the HD540 and bring new life back to these cans.

DMS Reigniting the passion for the Sennheiser HD540

But wait there’s more! Number one on our list of requested ear pads, drum roll, please… The Audioquest Nighthawk. If you are going to talk about cult followings in the headphone industry, this is it. We receive dozens of requests to make aftermarket ear pads for the Nighthawk. Well, could you imagine it? A customer engaged me about the Nighthawk, and this man exclaimed that he owns not one… not two… but THREE of them. The Nighthawk has eluded our collection for the time being but this man is itching to get life back into his collection of Nighthawks that he will be sending us his pads to develop new styles for these cans. I hope we can have something available for this crew of hardcore Nighthawk fans next year.

Recently we picked up an advertising spot at GoldenSound.audio. I appreciate the Golden One’s work and the attention to detail he provides when offering up free education resources to the audiophile community, so I had to grab a sponsor spot on his website. When you subscribe to his Patreon he has a community of like-minded individuals who are passionate about all things audiophiles and where he will answer questions you have regarding equipment and the likes.

Well, that community also dragged me into a hotel room filled with thousands of dollars of Headphones, Amplifiers, and DACs. I was able to have my first experience with the Abyss 1266, and right when you pick it up your first thought is “This is going to be interesting”. Hopefully, the guys at Abyss will hook us up in the future with some pads, because I want to see how pad rolling affects this beast of engineering. The adventure will be extremely fun especially with the different sound signatures available just by adjusting the distance between drivers.

What really blew my mind was when I got handed an Audio Technica AD900X. I have access to the AD900X in the office, and  had always felt, it’s just not a headphone for me. Not until it was attached to a tube amp did I get on board with how interesting it sounded. If you haven’t tried it, now you should because wowzas. Seriously, shout out to the Golden Sound community! If you are headed to CanJam NYC the group is already planning their stays in the Midtown area. Join up and get connected with like-minded people!

Wrap Up

What an intense show!  Despite all of the negativity in the world, a group of headphone enthusiasts came together and made this show possible. Thanks to Ethan, Jude and the entire Head-Fi team.  We hope to see you all at CanJam NYC, our hometown show. You can expect the entire Dekoni team at the show, where we will be answering questions and letting the crowd experience audiophile favorites.

See you next time!