John
For many an audio company, Japan’s keener interest in tech and larger population makes it a most lucrative market; perhaps why we see so many international guests fly in to support their local distributor’s presence at the bi-annual Fujiya Avic headphone show in Nakano.
At the Spring 2016 event I said “Konichiwa!” to Ken Ball of Campfire Audio, James Lee of Astell&Kern, Dan Clark of MrSpeakers, John Franks of Chord Electronics and Thorsten Loesch of AMR/iFi Audio.
m2Tech’s mainman Marco Manunta had also made the long haul to Tokyo to don a pink jacket in support of his distributor, Topwing (whom he shares with Loesch).
Readers with longer memories will recall that m2Tech were the first company to really put affordable USB-S/PDIF converters on the map with their hiFace 1 and – later – hiFace 2, the OEM version of which also made its way into high end converters from Metrum and Eastern Electric. In other words, Manunta knows USB.
On display to the right of the Topwing room, a digitally-routed Roksan turntable featured m2Tech’s Joplin MK2 ADC and Young DSD DAC. Consumer interest in m2Tech’s A/D converter is reportedly really starting to gain momentum with one third of total sales (since the Joplin’s 2012 inception) registering in the last three months!
On a nearby table, the modular Evo series offers DAC and DDC solutions for those who prefer to externalise clock and power supply (not for sale in Japan). Manunta walks us through four-fifths of the Evo series including the newer Evo DAC Two Plus:
Further information: m2Tech
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