Audio poison at CanJam 2017 Singapore: Drool-worthy headphones and more!

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1More was showing out at CanJam 2017 Singapore with their latest Quad Driver In-Ear Headphones on display. As the name implies, these have four drivers housed in a streamlined aluminum sound chamber for optimal effect. They'll be available in mid-April for a RRP of S$319.

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Dubbed "an audible piece of jewellery", the Xelento Remote from Beyerdynamic had a long line of audiophiles waiting to test it out. These are said to take everything Beyerdynamic has learnt from Tesla technology, packed into an extremely compact package. This will be available locally for S$ 1,599 from end March. 

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Ultra-small lightweight in-ears is what Final does best, and these tiny F7200 Balanced Armature drivers impressed us with their crisp bass response and the great clarity on vocals. How tiny is tiny? The F7200 has a diameter of just 5.5mm and a housing weight of only 2g! The entire headphone weighs 23g all in, with a cable length of 1.2m. These retail for US$479. 

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Think your cans are expensive? The limited edition UTOPIA by TOURNAIRE costs a cool €100,000 and has a total of 6 carats worth of diamonds. Only eight units will be produced worldwide, and only upon order. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the P’tit LOUIS association, dedicated to saving 8-year-old Louis Biscini who suffers from a rare degenerative disease: spinal muscular atrophy type 1.

 

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A close-up of the limited edition UTOPIA by TOURNAIRE from Focal. Yes, those are diamonds in the earcup, and the entire headphone is cast in 18 karat yellow gold. 

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The Stax SR-L300s are probably some of the most unconventional headphones you'll ever see. It uses a push-pull electrostatic oval sound element and has an incredibly wide frequency response of 7Hz - 41kHz.

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The Echobox Explorer is a digital audio player that features a 3.5-inch color LCD and comes in a lovely wooden chassis. It runs stock Android 6.0 Marshmallow and supports PCM formats up to 24-bit/192kHz. It is expected to launch in June later this year.

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The Nomad is Echobox's new flagship in-ear monitors. It features a solid titanium housing and 9.2mm Polyether Ether Ketone drivers. It also features Echobox's Acoustic-filther-Tuning system that allows users to switch filters to adjust the sound signature. It is expected to launch in June and will be priced around US$399.

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Singapore will be the first country out of the U.S. to have MrSpeakers' new Aeon headphones. These headphones are MrSpeakers' new entry-level planar magnetic headphones and we can tell you that they are supremely comfortable and they sound great. These are expected to be launched around June and will be priced at around S$1300.

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Also making an appearance at CanJam 2017 Singapore is Schiit's new Jotunheim desktop headphone amplifier and DAC. It is relatively compact and its balanced headphone output serves up to 7.5W per channel at 16ohms. The DAC component of the Jotunheim come as an optional module, but we suspect most buyers will opt it for as it provides dual AK4490 DACs in a hardware-balanced configuration.

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Custom in-ear monitors provide the best noise isolation because each earphone has been specially modeled to fit your ears. The problem with that is that the fitting process can be a little uncomfortable as it requires an audiologist to take impressions of your ears, and this procedure is usually done using wax. Not the most comfortable. UK company Snugs create custom-fit ear tips in a non-invasive way by using lasers. The process takes only about five minutes and it doesn't feel uncomfortable at all.

 

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We also got the chance to get up close and personal with Sennheiser's absolutely bonkers HE-1 headphones. It is more of a complete listening station actually because the headphones comes with its specially-designed tube amplifier and DAC. There is a total of eight ESS Sabre ES9018 DAC chips inside - four for each channel - and the headphones themselves feature Class A amplifier integrated within the ear cups to compensate for any signal degradation because of the cables. As you would expect, it sounds completely out of this world.