I was holding off writing a review of my own, pretty much in part because I’m lazy
, but your review makes writing one of my own redundant, since yours matches my observations perfectly, at least to the point where it was possible for me, since I don’t have the highest end setup.
The most important point of your review, that perfectly echoes what I heard with my own ears, is that the Lavri Grand appears to completely get out of the way. I really feel it is like looking through a perfectly clean window to your music and audio chain, or in fact no window at all, whereas the stock cable feels like a stained window. There’s zero coloration, and probably the most evenhanded frequency response I’ve ever heard. Another cable, like the Moon Audio Black Dragon, which they advertise as best match for the Susvara, does indeed act - as advertised - as an equalizer, adding some bass, which may work with recordings that are lacking in that department, but ends up obscuring fine detail in the mids and the highs, and also obscuring spatial cues, in recordings that don’t need it. The Moon Audio Blue Dragon perhaps comes closest to the Lavri’s evenhanded neutrality, but it has a slight emphasis in the treble, which is no issue at all with warm sounding recordings, but really starts to become noticeable with more treble oriented stuff, not necessarily becoming harsh, but resulting in less body in the sound. The Forza Hybrid cannot quite compete with either of them. It sounds very nice with vocals, really making them stand out, and adding some sweetness on top of them, but at the cost of what seems like a small dip in the upper mids or lower treble, so that some fine detail is lost in that region; it’s the least evenhandedly ‘tuned’ of the cables mentioned, even though it’s clearly a less stained window on the music than the Susvara’s stock cables are.
The Lavri also, unexpectedly, influenced my preferred setting to listen to on the HifiMan EF600, which had previously settled into High gain NOS, but the Lavri made me realize that setting adds a touch of - admittedly very inviting and nice sounding! - treble gloss to everything, also setting everything to a somewhat greater distance, making some things overly spacious. I still like it for some orchestral recordings, and when I’m simply in the mood for that sound signature, but Low gain OS, which previously came off as somewhat small sounding and uninteresting/monochrome, has now become the setting where almost everything falls into place for me; full-bodied, detailed, and warm where it needs to be, and without a hint of gloss on top, yet never dull or muted. A more sophisticated setup could still add some sweetness that is juuuuuust missing a bit from the EF600, but I feel the Lavri makes it sound as good as it possibly can, which is already pretty impressive! This also means, very importantly, that I feel I can completely trust the Lavri to tell me exactly what any future DAC/amp combo actually sounds like when I audition it.
Well, it looks like I ended up writing a review of sorts after all.
I just needed something to get me going!
I‘m noticing my assessments are still shifting, though, so I’m going to wait before pulling the trigger.
