CANJAM LONDON 2025 REPORT FROM JOSEPH MCCAFFREY
At just 11 years old, Joseph McCaffrey has started visiting HiFi and HeadFi shows. Find out what he thought of CanJam London 2025, held this summer.
A KID’S EYE VIEW OF CANJAM LONDON 2025
On Saturday 19th July I was invited down to CanJam in London as a reviewer for HiFi PiG. It was a mega early start as we had to get the train to London at 7am so that meant I had to be up at 6 am. I was excited although a little bit nervous but it’s pretty cool to be a reviewer at the age of 11!
I took my dad with me who was also looking forward to seeing all the different headphones and in ear monitors that the show had to offer.
Once we arrived in London we had to get several tubes until we arrived at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge which is very fancy. We got there nice and early so I could pick up my press pass. Inside it was like a massive hall with lots of different headphones and in ear monitors all over the place. I was excited to see what they all sounded like.
The first stand we went to was Vision Ears. This is a brand that I had never seen or heard of before like most of the brands to be honest. The colours of the IEMs were what attracted me to the stand as I didn’t realise you can get so many different colours. There were 6 different models on display and I couldn’t wait to listen to all of them. I decided to listen to the most expensive model first which were the VE Zen. They were pretty cool, very comfortable and really stylish. They sounded good when I listened to them, my go to tracks were Scooter how big is the fish or Coldplay Adventure of a lifetime. When listening to these songs I could hear all the bass sounds and each individual beat. I heard details in the song that I had never heard before. The representative explained the reason I could hear all the different sounds is because they have 10 drivers inside. I then listened to their entry level model the VE Ones although these were very good they didn’t deliver the same amazing quality as the VE Zen. While waiting for my dad to finish listening to the VE Zen’s I was shown something that really fascinated me where the guy introduced a magnetic stick to the VE XCONs model. He showed me that taking out a magnetic switch allows seamless switching between the ear phones which then activates the different sound waves whilst still giving a powerful sound.
Next we moved to Hercules Audio where we tried brand new IEMs. First I tried the model called Noah which were their new entry level model which sounded amazing. I asked multiple questions to find out more information about these as they really intrigued me. I liked these as they sounded loud but I also liked a model called Moses which is their new high end product. These had a sleek design that gave an immersive listening experience and sounded brilliant in my ears.
Next up we went to Ice Lab, the cables for these IEMs were really cool with lots of different colours and patterns to choose from. I used the purple cable first and it made the IEMs sound fantastic. Halfway through I changed to an orange cable which changed the bass sound of the monitors. My dad also stopped and listened to these for a long time too.
As my dad and I moved down the hall we came to the Elise Audio stand who had an entire row to themselves. I thought these guys must be good to have so much on display. Here I listened to a set of vinyl audio D7000 planar magnetic headphones. These looked very expensive and I knew I had to try them. They were attached to a really high end ultima 88 tube headphone amplifier which was very cool. These headphones were futuristic in style and were very big on my ears however they were very comfortable and sounded great. I could hear every part of the song that I had on and listened to them for ages. I even forgot where I was at one point as they carried me away into the song.
By this time I was hungry so we went for some lunch and my dad and I talked about all the amazing things we had seen so far.
As we headed back into the hotel after lunch, time was ticking away so we went into the plaza suite which was on the lower ground floor where there were lots and lots of people. The brand here was ZMF these were the only headphone brand that had a separate room all to themselves. These headphones were very cool because they had really nice wood finishes and one of the people representing the brand explained that some of the limited edition models had stabilised resin pumped into the wood to create the special patterns which looked insane. I could see one space left for me to listen to a pair of headphones. These were the ZMF Caldera model. The headband on these was very comfortable and they fitted nice and cosy on my ears. Although these were good I preferred the vinyl audio D7000 planar magnetic headphones which I had listened to earlier. One thing that did stand out to me in this room as well as the amazing colours of the headphones was a headphone amplifier that reminded me of a steam punk engine. I wasn’t quite sure what all the buttons and cogs did. This is something I would like to listen to next time as the room was so busy we didn’t get chance to.
After this we headed back downstairs to the main room where I needed to have a little break as I felt slightly overwhelmed with all the people and the noises going on. After about 40 minutes we went back in and we saw Gaz from Focal. I got to try the Focal utopias with the Naim atom amplifier. I listened to Coldplay and Michael Jackson on these and they sounded epic. These were very expensive at £4,700. This would be a lot of jobs around the house to buy these.
We moved to the Audeze stand where they had a PlayStation 5 hooked up to a pair of wireless gaming headphones. These were the Maxwells and made the game I was playing sound really good. You could hear all the robot voices and sounds around very clearly which enhanced the game.
By now it was late afternoon and Oscar from HiFi PiG appeared from around the corner and said we needed to go and speak to some people at the Meze stand where I got to meet two people who were very nice. They gave me a pin badge and a bracelet made out of headphone speaker cables. I have never seen anything so amazing and couldn’t wait to show my mum when I got home. After this my dad and I said thank you and goodbye to Oscar.
Although I didn’t get chance to see everything at the show what I did see was pretty cool and was even better than I thought it was going to be.
Overall, I would recommend getting a weekend ticket so that you have time to listen and see all the different brands on display.
Want to find out more about CanJam London 2025? Read our main report from Oscar here
Joseph McCaffrey
Read what Joseph thought of the Bristol HiFi Show 2025 here
