CanJam NYC 2026 Quick Highlights
This year's personal audio celebration in Times Square was full of surprises, including Flux's return to CanJam NYC (CJNY) after being absent for a number of years. Upon reuniting with a number of friends and brand representatives there's one question on the mind, "What was at CanJam that made the trip worth its while?"
Kyle: I really, really tried to have my full write-up done for this week but this year was so packed that I knew there would be no way I'd have it done if I wanted to keep my day job. I have had several people ask me for highlights, so here are my top and bottom picks of CanJam while I finish the rest in the coming weeks.
Flux: Hello everyone, it's been a while. I took some time away for personal reasons, and my oh my has it been a long 3.5 years since my last CanJam. This CJNY, I was more interested in products that I could see myself owning within the next year. With that, let's get on to our spotlights of hits and misses from the show!
Headphones
Audeze:
(+) Maxwell 2
Flux: I found the Maxwell 2 to be an immediate quality of life improvement over the original Maxwell, given how many hours I've racked up using it in the 18 months I've owned the first iteration from Audeze. While the SLAM technology might not have done wonders
(-) LCD-5S
Kyle: While this wasn't the worst sounding headphone of the show, it was the biggest disappointment for me. I have nothing good to say about it. Bass and midrange transients were incredibly blunted, upper midrange was as bothersome as the LCD-5, which sounded almost tinny at times to me, and the treble was very, very uneven. The SLAM port did create a bass hump, but it was one of the least textured bass reproductions I've heard in quite some time. As much as I hate the Audeze LCD-2C, I legitimately think the LCD-5S is worse.
Audio Technica:
(+) ADX7000, WP900, and W2022
Flux: The three Audio Technica (AT) headphones here create a triumvirate of fun headphones to me that need to be called out for a spotlight. I assume none of these headphones are going to win any awards for target adherence to my personal HRTF, however, they are undoubtedly 3 headphones I'd like to own by the end of the year.
The WP900 reminds me of a modern reinterpretation of the Creative Aurvana Live! (CAL) with its W-shaped frequency response and transportable size and ease of use with portable gear (38 ohms, 100 db/mW)
The ADX7000: is what I wish its predecessor in the ADX5000 always was, a darker lightweight flagship that was easy to kick back and relax with when I'm not ready for bed yet. I am so very excited to get my hands on one at home, especially when Kyle reviewed it positively last year!
The W2022 is a bass-head's dream, as though all of us from the Skullcandy Crusher and Sony XB-500 days finally matured and experienced the most immaculate glow-up. While normally seen paired with the in-house Narukami tube amp, I've had the pleasure of pairing it up with some other pieces of gear this weekend. It's an insanely expensive headphone in a landscape of increasingly costly flagships, but the commemoration of the company's 60th anniversary still makes me question the thought of ownership every single time I hear it because of its impeccable ability to make me smile while hearing my favorite tracks.
Capra Audio:
(+) Satyr 4
Kyle: This may be cheating a bit because I got to use them at an event outside of CanJam, but in my defense, my impressions mostly were with a phone dongle instead of the fancy setups at the show. I started printing the parts for the Satyr 4 as soon as it was released, but the difficulty of printing TPU made me push this aside for a bit, which was a mistake. This headphone has rocketed to my top 3 on my ranking list when only considering sound, and the top when taking value for money into account. I really, really like this headphone. I've heard many, many headphones that use the Peerless HPD-50N25 driver, but this one is the most refined one I've heard by far. It wasn't by accident either, I've been watching Brian's progress over the years and I could not be more excited to see what comes next.
As soon as I put the Satyr 4 on, I immediately stopped trying to nitpick because I couldn't really find any major issues on my head. The bass is shockingly clean and dynamic, which is not uncommon for these drivers, the midrange had some elevation but in a way that balances out the bass and treble (not unlike the Nightjar Singularity and other bass-heavy IEMs released in the past few years), and the treble was, frankly, about as clean as the Audio Technica ADX7000 on my head.
I've been so excited about this headphone I've offered to make them for three different friends already, and parts for those three pairs total about the same amount of money as a single Sennheiser x Drop HD6XX after tax. Of course, that assumes you have a 3D printer already, but it would be completely possible to buy a printer and parts for less than the cost of a new Sennheiser HD650. The Satyr 4 isn't quite a "6X0 but better" because it doesn't have the same lower midrange warmth that makes its timbre so wonderful, but, frankly, this headphone would be enough to make most people quit the hobby.
ETA Headphones:
(+) ULI
Kyle: I heard a prototype of this headphone last year and it was already quite good, but this version refined most of the issues I found. The treble is more refined and less elevated, which keeps them from masking finer details like I heard with the prior versions. Its bass has a bit of a hump, but had very nice tactile impact and decay, which is not something that always comes with elevated bass. The midrange, like the bass, had very solid texture. The only major complaints I have were actually build related. The clamp was a bit loose for me, someone with a head big enough to make a lot of headphones difficult to use. And, the easily accessible driver diaphragm combined with the gigantic pads made it impossible to move my hair out of the way of the driver. This caused noticeable buzzing because my hair was actually touching the driver diaphragm. They already warned me that they will be fixing the clamp, but they also will try to implement something for those of us with longer hair. I have yet to buy an Audio-Technica ADX7000 because I have been holding out on this headphone, and I am incredibly excited to see which one wins out for me.
Flux: In my honorable mentions this year, I'd like to shout out the ETA ULI for a one of a kind listening experience. In the absolute sauna that was available for attendees in the Mimic/ETA room, this headphone showed some promise in its exhibition for taking inspiration from at least two iconic personal transducers the free field-esque driver distance present in the AKG K1000, the diffuse sound field the HD800 produces, with a down-sloped frequency response that yielded an intriguing demo that I'd love to get hands on upon its full release in the future!
écoute audio:
(-) TH1
Kyle: Yikes. This was bad. Its bass had no texture at all, midrange sounded underwater, treble was quite elevated and unrefined, and the pinging due to having Nutubes was horrendous. This was one of the worst bluetooth things I’ve heard in a while.
(-) TH2
Kyle: Somehow worse! It sounded like only treble and bass? This was horrendous, I thought TH1 would be "worst in show" but TH2 was. I suggested tuning changes to the very nice reps at the booth but they said there will be a parametric app to help with the tuning. I would need a lot of time spent on that app. I legitimately am not confident I would be able to tone the treble down enough because the TH2 may be the brightest headphone I've ever heard, even compared to the Hifiman Shangri-La Sr.
Final Audio:
(-) DX10000
Kyle: This headphone was described as not production-tuning yet so this feels a bit unfair to put in this category, but I really hope Final changes how this is tuned. They did something I don't think I've ever heard in a headphone where harmonics were emphasized over fundamental notes, which creates a very strange listening experience that I can't quite describe as "boxy" but it does sound...wrong. I used to own a DAC, an Abbas 2.3SE, that did something similar but its very warm tone helped make this feature a little more enjoyable. The DX10000 had this presentation with fairly lean low midrange and very bright treble, which was not quite enjoyable. Despite this, I would still take the DX10000 over the LCD-5S.
Mirph Designs:
(+) Vitrum
Kyle: These sounded fairly close to the Satyr 4 but subjectively a bit warmer and a bit darker. This is to say, I loved these. I really don't have anything bad to say about them other than the possibility of sounding a bit too "safe" for some people. This is usually a good thing, and they had enough texture to make its more relaxed tuning remain engaging. It's difficult to justify the value versus the much, much cheaper Satyr 4, but the build absolutely felt more like a "made for market" product, and that alone could be enough for many people to outlay the extra funds.
Moondrop:
(-) Skyland (f.k.a. "Laputa")
Kyle: My first nit to pick is that Moondrop changed the name of this headphone. Laputa is the name of the flying island in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. It's a neat name that people seemed to denigrate, which I'm sure had some part in Moondrop changing its name to the more literal "Skyland." This explanation took longer to write than I cared to use the Skyland. It measures like raw Diffuse Field and sure sounded pretty close to that. If I could summarize the Skyland in one word it would be, like the decision to change the product name, gutless. Drums sounded hollow and midrange sounded tinny to a degree that almost matches pack-in airline earbuds. The treble, surprisingly, didn't bother me much though.
Stax Headphones:
(-) SR-007S
Kyle: This headphone was so, so, so shrill-sounding. It was one of the most sibilant sounding headphones I've heard in years, with a midrange that legitimately sounded like playing a phone speaker in a fishbowl. Absolutely dreadful. I don't know how Stax managed to make something this bad, as both their entry level and their flagship headphones are actually pretty competent.
Tangzu
(-) Ox Demon King
Kyle: There is a bit of a trend with the stuff I hate. As I'm fairly treble air sensitive, a lot of planar magnetic headphones tend to be challenging. It's something I'm trying to work on: I used a Hifiman Susvara Unveiled for the entire week leading up to CanJam to be less of a curmudgeon about treble, but my God did CanJam have other plans. The Ox Demon King sounded like it shelved 13kHz on up somewhere between 15-20dB on my head. It made flagship IEMs I don't like due to air like the Rhapsodio Supreme V3 and Mysticraft Hex sound dark in comparison. Not only that, but the midrange sounded like listening to music underwater. While the Ox Demon King is "only" $350, I would have to be paid double that to use them again.
Unique Melody
(-) Umbral
Kyle: Man. What was this. It sounded like the écoute TH2 but a little less fishbowl-like. Its bass was infinitesimally cleaner but the treble sounded shelved from 8kHz on up. I legitimately said, "what the fuck?" to myself when I took them off. They also felt pretty much like a Sivga headphone, so I have no idea how the $5,999 retail price was conceived.
ZMF:
(+) Caldera
Flux: I'd like to shout out a slightly older release here to solidify my positive stamp of approval after getting to hear the ZMF Caldera on multiple setups in the ZMF room. It's an overall more laid-back planar magnetic headphone compared to my normal gear pairings featuring either Audeze's LCD-4 or Hifiman's HE-6. Caldera's relaxed and spacious presentation made it delightful to revisit over and over again in the last 4 years across a wide variety of setups.
(+) Tessidera
Kyle: The Tessidera immediately sounded like a headphone that will be a huge hit for people or a huge miss. It reminded me of the LCD-3 Pre-Fazor I used to own. It remains one of the few headphones I wish I kept because it was so lovely-sounding, even if it was a bit boring at times. In a market where headphones seem to just keep getting brighter, the Tessidera felt like a salve. Though, its darkness will undoubtedly be a bit much for some: the Tessidera felt a bit dark to me, someone who thinks the Sennheiser HD650 treble is too elevated at times.
IEMs:
(+) CrinEar Reference
Kyle: This was the best IEM of the show for me. One of the natural comparisons I've seen people ask about was against the Prisma Lumen, for which impressions will come when my full writeup is complete. Unfortunately, the Lumen was not for me. Instead of dipping in the low midrange like I hear with the Lumen, the relative treble peak on the Reference actually fills in the hole I hear with the Lumen. It also does not elevate bass as much as Lumen, so the Reference sounded closer to "neutral" in my ears than any other transducer I've ever heard.
My only complaint is that the midrange seemed a touch forward compared to the Lumen, giving the Lumen a slight nod in midrange tone that otherwise is marred by its bass making the Lumen sound the slightest bit congested. I've known Crinacle for years and I'm not going to bother asking him for a review unit of these--I'm giving him money for making something this good.
(+) Dita Ventura
Flux: The Ventura is my vote for a respectable spiritual successor to the Dunu Luna, bringing a capable in-ear to my radar by way of a friend's recommendation to check it out. I had no idea how far single dynamic driver in-ears had come since 2020. Ventura sounded significantly more balanced than my particular Luna in the midrange, while managing to have significantly better 20 Hz extension compared the Dunu.
(+) Faith Audio Labs U1000
Flux: Although I tried both the E1000 and the U1000, the U1000 stood out as an incredibly lush vocal experience for what songs I played while either using my phone or the booth-provided DAP. It's a little too expensive for me to invest into at $8000 USD at the time of CJNY, but it was a fun in-ear to stumble upon that made me recontextualize some of the songs I've been listening to in the last year. I loved the cathedral-themed display piece for the Faith Audio booth as well!
Obravo
(+) Ra C Pt:
Kyle: This was different. It supposedly was the same configuration as the Ra C Cu but with a platinum housing. It should have sounded the same as the Cu but it didn't. It was huge sounding, bigger than the Subtonic STORM, which is one of the largest sounding non-speaker transducers I've ever heard, and I think STORM sounds bigger than headphones like the AKG K1000, Sennheiser HD800, and RAAL SR-1a. The treble was less piercing than Cu, but it retained fairly weird midrange and bass lacked impact despite being slightly elevated.
Despite all this, something about them absolutely clicked with me, making music sound holographic in a way I have never heard before. It does require recalibrating expectations because this does not sound remotely meta, but this IEM has made the biggest impression on me since hearing the STORM for the first time. At $20,000 though, the only way I'd be able to hear these again would be if they bring these to another show.
(+) Subtonic STORM
Flux: Simply put, this IEM is on a shortlist of products that genuinely feels worth defining as an "in-ear monitor". While a little strong in the treble with certain tips, the STORM is by far my favorite transducer to use when asked how I want to listen to music. A full review will be in the near future.
Source Gear:
Flux: CanJams are never the best place for me to evaluate amps and DACs, but are frequently some of the only times I get the opportunity to. Below are some pieces of gear I want to call out that I'd love to get more time with in the future if the stars aligned.
(+) ETA Headphones x Straitwire Bravo
(+) LAIV Harmony HPA-2 + DAC
(+) MASS-Kobo 465
(+) Schiit Mjolnir 3 + Yggdrasil Singular "Byggy"
This wraps up our quick thoughts on the show this year. We'll hope to see you back for our full show coverage soon!