CanJam SoCal 2025, held this fall in Irvine, California, was a class-act headphones show from start to finish. With a plethora of rooms hosting folks like Dekoni/ Audio/Grell/Dark Matter Audio Labs, Grado Labs, Dan Clark Audio, Head Amp, Meze Audio, PrimaLuna, Yamaha and many many more, there were more booths and products than one person could possibly cover.
That’s the thing about audio shows: at first they seem manageable, but if you actually sit down and listen seriously, suddenly you’re out of time to visit what you thought were those easily-managed and visited booths. So it was with CanJam SoCal 2025. There were also classes and lectures upstairs, and folks to run into who were hanging out in the lobby. Most of all, there were wall-to-wall headphones, in-ears, DACs, headphone amplifiers, music and more.
My attendance at this CanJam wasn’t at all guaranteed. My mother, age 95 had fallen so seriously ill that we were discussing hospice. A week earlier, while loading groceries at the Costco in Garden Grove, someone walked off with my backpack with my travel gear. I lost my Sony A7 IV camera, lenses, another camera, my MacBook Pro, Sony 7506 headphones, a Bolt DAC, and more. In the end, although I was insured for most of it, I still ended up out-of-pocket, and had to borrow a friend’s Nikon camera to cover the show.
Sadly, in October my mom entered hospice and passed away at home, a huge loss for all of us. My mom loved music and spent her summers working at Tanglewood, just to be close to her idol Arturo Toscanini, who she could listen to during rehearsals. When I was in high school I was able to purchase wholesale from a local record distributor all the discs my mom missed out from when my dad tossed out her beloved albums when they moved from Brooklyn to Hollywood. So, she loved it when I played her Beethoven through some great headphones, and found that while I was stealing time away from her hospital bed, I needed CanJam in ways I wasn’t able at the time to understand.
So, I think it’s fair to say I was bit distracted, but seeing old friends, and listening to amazing systems and music was a tonic for the soul. The better systems were so close in quality it wasn’t like one was a sonic revelation over the others as much as it was like comparing a Canon to a Nikon, Sony, or Leica. Everything I heard were top-flight systems, and all of their demos depended to a large extent to the choice of source material. We are at a point where, as wonderful as the $50,000 Shangri-La system from HIFIMAN was, in my opinion I felt I could hear 95 percent of the same quality for five percent of the expense.
A young visitor in an audio reverie prays to win the lottery so she can have a HIFIMAN Shangri-La SR headphone amp and electrostatic headphones of her own, which at $50,000 isn’t an impulse buy.
I encountered all kinds of people and gear. There was a lovely couple who rented a beachfront home, and threw a killer party for their friends and industry insiders. There were young couples sharing tunes, older audiophiles with know-it-all attitudes, and an incredible variety of headphone design approaches including planar magnetic, electrostatic, dynamic, single-driver, balanced armature, multi-driver, open-ear, closed-back, and more. I talked to in-ear monitor experts like industry veteran Tal Daniel Kocen, who founded not only Dekoni Audio, but also Dark Matter Audio Labs. (The latter company had taken molds of my ears at NAMM earlier in the year, and a few months later, some wonderful custom earmold earphones arrived.)
I think that when it comes to earphones or in-ear monitors or earbuds, whichever nomenclature you prefer, that most folks miss the most important element in getting the most out of them: their fit. I have found that custom ear molds are such a huge step up in audio performance that I think more folks should go that route before bothering to try upgrading with new electronics. It’s that important.
I would be remiss if I didn’t pay homage to Dr. Mead Killion, the founder of Etymotic, and a pioneer of in-ear monitor design, who passed away in November 2025. Killion’s inventions weren’t borne out of audio, but began as hearing protection. Mead, with his distinctive handlebar mustache, tall stature and booming voice, was a key figure in starting an entire industry. He has held firm in his belief that his single-armature design, well known from the legendary ER-4 earphones, was superior to dynamic designs, especially multi-driver designs with crossovers, which he states have inherent phase issues and other problems. Mead was also a superb classical musician, and was known for his ETY-Plugs hearing protectors, which he would distribute to fellow musicians since they were often subject to tinnitus and hearing loss.
I’d met Mead at MacWorld San Francisco back in the 2000s when it was held at Moscone Center, and we’d stayed close friends ever since. We used to have a ritual. I’d pick him up late at night after a CES (Consumer Electronics Show), and we’d head to our favorite Pho restaurant in Las Vegas Chinatown, and so at midnight we’d be discussing his efforts to lobby for over the counter PSA (Personal Sound Amplifiers) in the belief that there were millions of Americans who would be helped by them, and unable to afford hearing aids at six times their cost. As an audiologist he helped craft legislation to push for Medicare coverage of assistive hearing devices.
Every booth at CanJam SoCal 2025 with earphones owed an enormous debt of gratitude to Mead, and his death really hit home. Next time you use a pair of IEMs, make a place in your heart for Mead.
Can Jam SoCal 2025 was incredibly well-run, with a really positive vibe. Everyone I knew had a great time, and I look forward to attending the next iteration in New York, and encourage others to do so as well. Well done! (CanJam New York 2026 takes place at the New York Marriott Marquis on March 7 and 8.)
Here are some of the people who made the show such a must-see for headphone enthusiasts.
The Dekoni Audio room was packed with headphones, eartips, replacement earphone pads, and my favorites, their incredibily useful Nuggets headband pressure relief pads Here are Jermo Koehnke and Henriette Grell of Grell Audio, Rachelle Elder and Tal Daniel Kocen from Dark Matter Labs, and Sam Roney and Dylan Scarzafva of Dekoni.
Henriette Grell and Jermo Koehnke of Grell Audio are with Gary Barner of Headphone.Guru. Grell were showing a stunning new headphone.
It wouldn’t be a first-rate audio show if Jesus Ornelas and Jason Duval from Cardas Audio weren't there at the ready, complete with soldering irons and heat shrink tubing.
It’s been years since the author reviewed some Yamaha products, but their team was on hand to change that. Raiken Takahashi, Ginger Christensen, Paul Shea, and Aki Iwama held down the popular booth.
Audio PR impresario Adam Sohmer (far left) is with some assorted audio folks, including Erich Heiger (Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity), Tom Domasz (HIFIMAN), Joe Currao (GadgetryTech), Lory Hawley, (Secrets) Mark Ramos (HIFIMAN); Brian Farlow, (Reviews by WaveTheory), and Brian Mitchell (eCoustics).
Grado Labs is a legendary name in audio. From their Brooklyn factory they create audio magic known worldwide. Here, John Grado, Mathew Grado, Jonathan Grado, and Richard Grado gather for an audio family portrait. It doesn’t get better than this!
A view of the new Grado Labs Signature HP100 SE open-ear headphones, which the author found to be musically invigorating.
Dylan Scarzafva from Dekoni Audio with two fans, Chip Haldane and Autumn Wright, who hold an annual taco night beach party for industry insiders and friends. The author is hoping he’ll be invited to the next one!
MASS-Kobo makes all of their products in-house. Here is Masanori Masuda and the team.
This was high-stakes gambling at CanJam! Turn the gumball machine, and if you were lucky, you won a cool gift, such as various eartips in different colors and sizes. Here Ray Tan Yu Kang of Kotori Audio and Kenneth Koh of Singapore's DITA Audio were all smiles.
Fosi Audio is rocking the audio world with low-cost, high-performance, feature-rich products. Here Sensi, Cornelia, and Cindy from Fosi Audio were excited to show off their wares, including some very cool earphones, headphones, and electronics.
Schiit Audio brought their American-made Valhalla 3 OTL/OCL (output transformer-less and output capacitor-less) tube headphone amp, along with their Gungnir 2 balanced DAC.
The Schiit team was there in force. From left to right: Dave Kerstetter, Gene Clark, Denise Martin, Evan Scriviner and Jason Stoddard.
Technics as always had excellent products to show. On hand were Ellison Ferdinand, Hiro Harada, and Brendan Martin, to distribute whimsical white sailor caps that made everyone look like Gilligan.
Victor Tescareno shows off his VZR Audio Model One MK II audiophile gaming headphones, said to have zero latency.
Manyu Zhang, Jaren Cloud, and Xinwei Tan, of HIDIZS, maker of portable digital audio players. The author is in the process of reviewing their new flagship HIDIZ+LINSOUL AP PRO MAX lossless music player and new MP145 planar magnetic earphones.
Jaren Cloud was at CanJam to work with HIDIZS. In addition to a high-level career working with PR agent to the stars Ari Morguelan, he’s a first-rate singer-songwriter who treated the author to an impromptu concert under the stars after the show.
It's the end of the day, the show's almost over, and it's time to relax, Chord Electronics style! Tom Vaughn and Rick Williford (Chord), Nitha Viraporn (Qobuz), and Colin Pratt (Chord), were ready to take a deep breath before the real work began: breaking down and packing up their booths.
Zach and Bevin Mehbach of ZMF headphones, makers of beautiful wood-crafted headphones and amplifiers, were elated to have survived CanJam SoCal 2025!
Header image: David Denson and Tania Ciochina of Meze Audio holding lots of audio goodness, all the way from Baia Mare, Romania.
All images courtesy of Harris Fogel.
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