Barone Birra
100+ Head-Fier
At the price ..... €?two Valkyria were ordered in the aftermath
Spirit Torino Valkyria
- Thread starter Barone Birra
- Start date
I read international retail price is 12000€ but a friend of mine told me a different lower price
headsound81
New Head-Fier
and what would this lower price be?
i don´t know. Told me a friend from Italy
normie610
Headphoneus Supremus
Well it’s $12k if you’re using the price I quoted above and the current exchange rate$14K headphones?
bfin3
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2014
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I used to be the guy who was annoyed when people complained about spending $1500 on a flagship but $12K is truly grotesque, especially for something that looks like it would be at home on a shelf in a hot topic. There's no possible way the BOM is a tenth of that.
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The official price is 12000€. In dollar with currente exchange 14380 dollars lol
The Valkyria comes as the response of the designer, Andrea Ricci, to the challenge of developing and manufacturing a no-holds-barred, whatever-it-takes, cost-no-object design where he could put in place his wildest fantasies about how a headphone should be created, followed by intensive testing and fine tuning on the field for best accuracy vs. real sound from him, the Spirit team and a selection of musicians and professionals.
It is very obvious that Spirit Torino has decided for a very ambitious price tag for the Valkyria, part of it being basically arbitrary and, marketing-wise, likely aimed to make a provocative statement.
Once the Valkyria will be out in the wild, we'll see whether it will live up to the boldness of its positioning.
Summit-fi audio - not that I like it – has reached long ago a level where the justification of the price based on the BOM is somewhat pointless, somehow like asking the raw material cost of a haute-couture dress, or a Michelin 3-starred restaurant dish, or even - in the technology context - a limited edition hypercar.
That said, it seems fair to me to point out some really concrete technical contents of this design.
Please note that I have no affiliation with the company whatsoever, and this are information I collected from the Valkyria brochure and through some personal conversations with Spirit Torino during my auditions.
• it features the most advanced implementation of the company's patented twin-driver isobaric system, requiring four drivers with perfectly matched specifications;
• the driver case is made out as a very expensive monolithic part, by high-precision machining of grade 5 titanium alloy blocks, and it is then acoustically treated for improved dampening characteristics. This level of mechanical stiffness, inertial and viscous dampening design is what it takes to deliver the tremendous dynamics range the Valkyria is capable of;
• the magnetic motor (they called it the "Revolver Driver" due to its peculiar shape) is another innovation Spirit has come out with specifically for the Valkyria, which provides an unprecedented – for the brand – intensity and uniform spatial concentration of the magnetic field just where it is needed, which in turn enables a the fast, resolving and highly articulated type of driver response you typically get from electrostats and planars, together with the punch and air column volume motion you only get from high-excursion dynamic drivers;
• the pads are a very sophisticated design realized by a mix of multiple materials (leather, true Alcantara, composites, metals) aimed to provide an acoustic chamber which aims to mimic the open space, by minimizing unwanted resonances and the feeling of air compression close to the ear, thus giving a sense of openness, effortlessness to the sound, even at high volume. Furthermore, it features a combination of spacers and screwed bass port taps, where you can fine tune the sound to your anatomic and sound signature preferences;
• the cabling, I left it last, but it is one of the most striking features of the headphone. Each cable is actually a system of 18 cables with 16 silver conductors arranged in a multiple helical way configuration and two solid core copper conductors along the axis of the cable itself. This design is again a new development specific for the Valkyria. For minimal loss of quality, the cables are soldered to the driver, which is actually one of the most challenging stages of the product assembly, currently curated by Andrea Ricci himself. The materials selection, design and construction of the “stock” Valkyria cable are of the tier of the TOTL models from DHC, Danacable, JPS Labs etc., all being in the 2-3kUSD retail price ballpark.
As for non-sound-related contents of the package, the Valkyria comes enclosed in a wooden box which is spectacularly handcrafted, this alone costing to Sprit close to 500USD, and the headband material comes from a careful selection on strips of luxurious types of leathers supplied directly by a supplier of high-end Italian fashion brands.
The whole product screams Made-in-Italy (although some visuals and accessories - e.g. cable spacers - are a bit over the top for my taste), and it is in fact entirely designed, built and assembled in Italy, within a district (Turin) renowned for high tech industries in the automotive and aerospace field, and sartorial executions of the same.
Finally, the Valkyria is for a good part of his assembly and final verification / tuning process directly managed by Andrea Ricci, the designer, mastermind and one of the owners of the brand, which arguably increases the cost.
Whether all this provides to the listed price at least some basic substantiation is up to any consumer to decide, being eventually the audition ideally a necessary step at this level of investment.
I had the privilege of a prolonged listening session with the Valkyria in my system, and decided to take the plunge afterwards, as I consider it a great complementary headphone to my AB-1266 TC, and a truly remarkable technical achievement in its field.
As anybody else, I had to discuss the pricing privately with Sprit Torino and - although I do not agree with this less than transparent approach - I will comply to their request not to disclose it. I will limit myself to say that it was, by very far, the highest price I ever paid for a headphone.
The first two batches of Valkyria (12 units out of 99 limited edition sets) have already been sold in the meanwhile, I am patiently waiting for my #09/99 to be here hopefully within a few weeks
It is very obvious that Spirit Torino has decided for a very ambitious price tag for the Valkyria, part of it being basically arbitrary and, marketing-wise, likely aimed to make a provocative statement.
Once the Valkyria will be out in the wild, we'll see whether it will live up to the boldness of its positioning.
Summit-fi audio - not that I like it – has reached long ago a level where the justification of the price based on the BOM is somewhat pointless, somehow like asking the raw material cost of a haute-couture dress, or a Michelin 3-starred restaurant dish, or even - in the technology context - a limited edition hypercar.
That said, it seems fair to me to point out some really concrete technical contents of this design.
Please note that I have no affiliation with the company whatsoever, and this are information I collected from the Valkyria brochure and through some personal conversations with Spirit Torino during my auditions.
• it features the most advanced implementation of the company's patented twin-driver isobaric system, requiring four drivers with perfectly matched specifications;
• the driver case is made out as a very expensive monolithic part, by high-precision machining of grade 5 titanium alloy blocks, and it is then acoustically treated for improved dampening characteristics. This level of mechanical stiffness, inertial and viscous dampening design is what it takes to deliver the tremendous dynamics range the Valkyria is capable of;
• the magnetic motor (they called it the "Revolver Driver" due to its peculiar shape) is another innovation Spirit has come out with specifically for the Valkyria, which provides an unprecedented – for the brand – intensity and uniform spatial concentration of the magnetic field just where it is needed, which in turn enables a the fast, resolving and highly articulated type of driver response you typically get from electrostats and planars, together with the punch and air column volume motion you only get from high-excursion dynamic drivers;
As for non-sound-related contents of the package, the Valkyria comes enclosed in a wooden box which is spectacularly handcrafted, this alone costing to Sprit close to 500USD, and the headband material comes from a careful selection on strips of luxurious types of leathers supplied directly by a supplier of high-end Italian fashion brands.
The whole product screams Made-in-Italy (although some visuals and accessories - e.g. cable spacers - are a bit over the top for my taste), and it is in fact entirely designed, built and assembled in Italy, within a district (Turin) renowned for high tech industries in the automotive and aerospace field, and sartorial executions of the same.
Finally, the Valkyria is for a good part of his assembly and final verification / tuning process directly managed by Andrea Ricci, the designer, mastermind and one of the owners of the brand, which arguably increases the cost.
Whether all this provides to the listed price at least some basic substantiation is up to any consumer to decide, being eventually the audition ideally a necessary step at this level of investment.
I had the privilege of a prolonged listening session with the Valkyria in my system, and decided to take the plunge afterwards, as I consider it a great complementary headphone to my AB-1266 TC, and a truly remarkable technical achievement in its field.
As anybody else, I had to discuss the pricing privately with Sprit Torino and - although I do not agree with this less than transparent approach - I will comply to their request not to disclose it. I will limit myself to say that it was, by very far, the highest price I ever paid for a headphone.
The first two batches of Valkyria (12 units out of 99 limited edition sets) have already been sold in the meanwhile, I am patiently waiting for my #09/99 to be here hopefully within a few weeks
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Good for Spirit
Well, I think it’s officially a little over €10K:
https://headphone.shop/product/spirit-torino-valkyria/
Non-detachable cable and Grado style foam in the box.
Crazy expensive, but good for marketing. Even I’m like, what does this €10K headphone sound like? Does it justify the price? Me being in the US makes trying these probably impossible. I’ll live vicariously through you all in this thread
https://headphone.shop/product/spirit-torino-valkyria/
Non-detachable cable and Grado style foam in the box.
Crazy expensive, but good for marketing. Even I’m like, what does this €10K headphone sound like? Does it justify the price? Me being in the US makes trying these probably impossible. I’ll live vicariously through you all in this thread
Well, I think it’s officially a little over €10K:
https://headphone.shop/product/spirit-torino-valkyria/
Non-detachable cable and Grado style foam in the box.
Crazy expensive, but good for marketing. Even I’m like, what does this €10K headphone sound like? Does it justify the price? Me being in the US makes trying these probably impossible. I’ll live vicariously through you all in this thread
Even on my twin pulse the cable is not detachable, I think it has to do with Andrea Ricci's idea of having as few steps as possible, after all for the Valkyria we are talking about a top silver cable that could easily cost € 2000, with what would you like to change it, with a Silver Dragon?
Andrea Ricci explained to me how we arrived at that choice, and it was only possible because we were able to choose the best without spared any expense.
While I am waiting for my Valkyria, these days I am busy listening to my Raal with a lot of software, from jazz, to blues and a lot of classical music, here I find a strong contact between Valkyria and Raal, which is in the timbre.
Those who have been lucky enough to listen to the Raal, will recognize that one of its strong points is the total absence of grain, a fluidity in emitting sounds at a level unknown to other headphones ... Valkyria is just like that, only you have 2 drivers per channel closed by a pad, therefore with explosive dynamics.
Crazy expensive, but good for marketing. Even I’m like, what does this €10K headphone sound like? Does it justify the price? Me being in the US makes trying these probably impossible. I’ll live vicariously through you all in this thread
The Valkyria project was born as a challenge to the designer funded by a small group of audiophiles, which then turned out so successful that Spirit Torino decided to make it a commercially available product, but still in a very limited series.
With only 99 items built, and a build-to-order policy, the Valkyria will most likely remain some sort of unicorn product anyway.
Spirit Torino allows auditions in Italy and they seem to have decided to partner-up with the German guys at Headphones.com to cover the EU market ... perhaps they will make it possible to try the headphone within Europe at some point. I know they have discussed about bringing the Valkyria at the next Munich High-End in September, but we know how pointless is to audition headphones at a show...
For worldwide visibility, I do not know if Spirit Torino have some plans for the US and Japan.
I think they should figure out a way to make it possible for people overseas to experience the product, as committing to such a big investment blind, especially being the brand not as established in the ultra-high-end as the likes of Stax, Hifiman, Sennheiser, JPS etc. , will be quite of a challenge, but (see picture below)
.
Yes, Andrea "mantra" coming from his background as a classical / jazz recording engineer (https://www.celebremagazine.world/s...-the-art-of-sound-how-spirit-torino-was-born/) seem to be timbre and dynamics, as the two major traits of the live experience of music that he aims to capture in his recordings and reproduce through the top of the his headphones line, especially with the Valkyria.
To me, the most striking feelings from auditioning the Valkyria were about dynamics and density.
Density of sound, as that packing of complex harmonics information, concentrated energy and tactility that is as elusive to define in words as it is easy to experience and recognize when attending live concerts, is perhaps the ultimate challenge for reproduced audio, even more with headphones.
Well, listening to piano or a drum kit solo with the Valkyria at concert-like SPL, was the closest thing to being physically exposed to the real thing that I experienced on headphones, and ultimately the trigger for my purchase.
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uptildawn53
100+ Head-Fier
The new top of the line from Spirit Torino, with twin driver, titanium cups and silver wiring...
Stunning and unique .. I can only imagine the cost
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