Canjam is a one of a kind experience. Organised by Head-fi, these annual events are a unique space where audiophiles and their favourite manufacturers gather from all over the world to see, touch and hear the latest and coolest gear. For just those two days, you’ll be able to find yourself talking to the Japanese amp engineers one minute, and trying out Polish custom earphones the next. It’s a feast for the ears. But that raises the question - as we look for gear to listen with, what do we listen to?
Even in the very lively public space of Canjam, the act of listening to a track remains quite individual. I couldn’t help but wonder, what are the songs flowing through cables and drivers all over the room? For us audiophiles, what is the song we choose to press play on? So I went around Canjam Singapore 2019 and asked:
“When you have your favourite setup, what’s the first, go-to, favourite song you play?”
Below you’ll find responses from attendees, engineers, brand reps and distributors. Some interpreted this to mean test tracks, while others shared with me their favourite jams. The question phrasing is admittedly clunky, but I was hoping to get at that feeling where you listen to a song, and something clicks inside your heart. About that feeling when you unbox that latest buy and pick your first song to play for maximum pleasure. It’s not an easy thing to put into words, and after all, everyone has their own version of it. Nonetheless, I hope you’ll find this insightful in some way, and my heartfelt thanks goes to all those below who were kind enough to talk with me. In no particular order:
Marco, Focal/Absolute Sound: Soulwax - Is it Always Binary. “And Queens of the Stone Age is good too.” With a background in producing electronic music, the pacing and beats on this Soulwax cut are something he really digs and listens for.
Megane, Focal: Diana Krall - Temptation, for the vocals, and Jennifer Warnes - Rock You Gently for that deep bass.
Kenneth, Focal/Absolute Sound: The Reddings - The Awakening Part 1. “Especially that bass slap.” He’s not one to pigeonhole himself into a single genre, but if he had to pick one this would be it. They usually leave the album on a loop for demo, so it’s one the whole crew’s gotten pretty familiar with, and for good reason - it’s an absolute banger. He also recommends the subsequent songs on the record: Doin’ It which has vocals, and I Want It for a slower mood. “But ultimately,” he adds, “if you don’t enjoy the song, what’s the point right?”
Lovin, Wired for Sound: Nobuo Uematsu - The Man with the Machine Gun (Distant Worlds Orchestral Version) “If the headphone can play this song without any problems, I’ll buy it.” He likes how the song takes you through the whole spectrum. Fast, slow, quiet, loud - all in 3 and a half minutes. He was kind enough to let me listen to it on his player, and it really gave my IEMs a workout. A very dynamic, energetic piece.
Takatoshi Seto, Acoustune: He responded instantly - ONE OK ROCK. Asked which song exactly, he had to think for a bit, then decided on one of their latest releases, Stand Out Fit In.
Andreas Schmitt, InEar: He paused, deep in thought. “Ok, you know what are...classics?” Then looked me deliberately in the eyes as he listed each of the following: Adele - Hello, Yello - Limbo, Klaus Bedelt - He’s A Pirate, Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake (Berliner Philharmoniker), Herbie Hancock - Cantaloupe Island.
Antony, Music Sanctuary: At first he took it to mean test tracks, but when I rephrased and asked him what puts a smile on his face, what he jams out to, he just lit up and responded with Twenty One Pilots - Fairly Local. Such bass power.
Ito-san, Kumitate Lab’s engineer: He truly had a tough time deciding, as he will have a set of as many as 20 to 30 songs for tuning each IEM model he makes, and that each set is unique and diverse with songs stretching across decades and genres. I then asked if there’s a song that shows up more than most, or that he keeps coming back to, and after much thought and some banter with his colleagues in Japanese, he replied that there is one song he likes to use to test dynamic driver bass specifically - Yonezu Kenshi’s 打上花火 (Uchiage Hanabi). “If the bass is not tuned correctly, you can hear it in the rumbling.” For bass-treble balance, he listens to BUMP OF CHICKEN - ファイター (Fighter). Just a note, this song isn’t available on Spotify for me, so it isn’t in the playlist, but it is uploaded on youtube here .
Kyo, Final Audio: “Ah...hmm...I think you may not know this singer...she is not really famous outside Japan.” He really enjoys female vocals - no surprise that he’s with Final then - and his first pick is MACO - Love for enjoyment, but also for testing because it’s usually on the top of his recently played list anyway.
Chingan, Final Audio: Lady Gaga - Always Remember Us This Way. This song is what’s on rotation for now, he likes to listen to the wide soundstage and fine details within.
Albert, fellow attendee: Hailing from Indonesia, Albert shared that Hoff Ensemble - Hva Skal Hende Nå is one of his Top 3 songs to listen to. They’re a Norwegian band, and this album is aptly titled Quiet Winter Night.
Piotr Granicki, Custom Art: FIBAE Black, the single-BA-that-does-not sound-like-one, went through over 20 iterations, and I decided to ask if there was a go-to song Piotr would use through that long tuning process. Like Ito-san, he had a tough time settling on one, saying that he tries to keep a big variation so that you know the IEM will handle a wide variety of things well. But, he kept coming back to Cane Hill - Singing in the Swamp. He would listen out for “this point about 30s in, where with just a drum beat, everything changes, and it becomes really loud.” Interestingly, unlike Ito-san, Piotr keeps more or less the same set of tracks in rotation across his models, so he can compare across his lineup more easily. I do wish I’d asked him though, whether listening to Singing in the Swamp gives him flashbacks of late nights at his workshop tuning up the FIBAE Black. Oh well, maybe next Canjam.
Herbert Zheng, Moondrop: Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27, Mitsuko Uchida on piano. “Hey, she was actually very pretty when she was young,” says Herbert as I point to the album cover on Spotify. Classical music is the genre he mainly enjoys, but he chuckles and shares how working in the audio industry has messed with his listening habits. “We try to tune for the general audience, so we will look at everything in a customer’s playlist and just listen through the whole thing.” Which for him meant a lot of mandopop, since in China most western music and streaming platforms aren’t available. After all the pop though classical is still a mainstay in his playlist, alongside some J-pop nowadays (looking through the playlist, he actually recognised Uchiage Hanabi, though he knows it by the chinese pronounciation of the characters - da shang hua huo.) For this concerto he stressed that one has to listen to all three movements - though the first and third are his personal favourite.
Sam Roney, Dekoni Audio: Sam’s was the quickest response on the list, immediately shooting back with Moloko - Sing It Back. “Snare-heavy” in his words, it’s an energetic track that would do well on the dancefloor - the Boris Dlugosch mix is an instant banger.
Tal Kocen, Dekoni Audio: Tal took a bit longer to decide, but eventually said that he would come back to Fleetwood Mac. “Rumours, that whole record, you know?” If he had to pick one song off it, it’d be Fleetwood Mac - The Chain. A classic.
Masuda Masanori, MASS-kobo: It took a couple rounds of translation, but after he understood the question, he immediately replied with Jen Chapin’s Jesus Children of America, pulled out his player, connected it to his model 404, gesturing for me to listen. I do, and it’s gorgeously full and vivid. He uses this song as a tester when he builds each of his amps, but it’s also one he enjoys. It turns out he got the CD with this song from Jen Chapin herself, decades ago when an engineer in LA introduced him to her. “Very rare, that time only released in USA, not in Japan. I also visited the recording studio where they recorded this album, showed them my amps, and the engineers there were very impressed,” he says, grinning.
And that rounds it up...with no Hotel California at all, make of that what you will. Thanks again to the above folks for taking the time to entertain my questions. Even with all the high-end gear on show, one of the most valuable things at Canjam is always the community, the people, the conversations you have. It was wonderful getting all these different perspectives on audio and hearing how people enjoy their music. In the course of all these conversations, unavoidably the age-old question arose from time to time: are you using your gear to listen to your music, or using music to listen to your gear? Maybe even both? In the end we all agreed it’s a personal thing. You listen to what you like, you find tracks that work for you, whether you’re tuning an IEM, testing cans at the store, or just laid back at home. In that sense I admit that asking people to pick just one track is unfair. As many of the people listed above mentioned, one song isn’t going to cover all your moods, all the frequency ranges.
But in this case, it’s not about the perfect track, but rather the perfect moment. It’s that that song or album or band that sticks out in your memory. Maybe it’s only with a specific setup, or it could be any old headphone, whichever. The music that when you first heard, or hear it now, just makes something click inside, you know? Just gives you that feeling of rightness.
I remember fondly what that feels like for me, and I wanted to know how it was for others, hence this playlist. 16 different ‘peak listening experiences’, so to speak. What’s yours?
annaxmalina
germansingergirl
gummygunk
izzy806