Marco Manunta reports: This year, for the first time, M2Tech will exhibit at a CanJam, which is a show devoted uniquely to headphones, headphone amplifiers and ancillaries. I’m not totally new to this kind of events, as our Far East distributors usually attend at them since many years, but I must admit that headphones were, for me, only a curious way to listen to music in an unnatural way.

But times are changing and we must keep this into consideration. Also customers change (thanks God!) and a generational turnover is taking place right now. Whereas older audiophiles were accustomed to listen to speakers as a mandatory setup to obtain the most realistic soundstage, younger music lovers have grown up listening to headphones (often earphones) driven by an MP3 player or a mobile phone with music playback capability.
As I forecasted some years ago, those boys are now becoming young men and want to improve the quality of their living, while keeping their habits as far as this is possible. This also means keep listening to music by headphones, but with better quality than before.

Also, listening to headphones is a good way to enjoy music in places in which using speakers would be impossible (in open air, for example), or would bother other people (in a small home with babies who need to sleep often for example). Not to forget the older audiophiles taking their siësta :-).

Japanese audiophiles, often living in small homes with very thin walls, are used to headphone listening since many decades. This explains why headphones are a relevant part of the market in Far East since the beginning of hi-fi, and also explains why CanJams are common events over there.

September 21th, we’ll introduce our new headphones amp, the Marley Dual-Drive Class-A, a compact unit with many interesting features. We wait for you in Essen!