[draytonklammer]

Everything. Classical music mostly but I've got a rotation of heavy metal, alternative, progressive house, jazz, pop/kpop, and old school hip hop.


I appreciate your honest insights but I'm trying really hard to temper my expectations. On paper, the Bravura's sound signature is what I'm looking for, but I'm also thinking back to how I disappointed I was with hearing the Utopia 2022 and the Abyss Diana MR.

I was also disappointed in the Utopia 2022.
Diana MR was good with the suede pad, but I prefer the Bravura.

 

[Terriero]

Before I had the financial means to own any gear remotely worthy of the "hifi" moniker, I remember getting Haggard's Eppur Si Muove album and thinking the production was awful

Very good album, though. But it sounded poor on my old Aiwa stereo, and it still sounds poor today on my KEF Blade 2s

Better to listen to it with cheap headphones... Haggard takes care of our wallets

BTW, I have read in Wikipedia that they planned to launch an album about Grimm tales, but no news about that...

 

[ScornDefeat]

Better to listen to it with cheap headphones... Haggard takes care of our wallets

BTW, I have read in Wikipedia that they planned to launch an album about Grimm tales, but no news about that...

It's been 15 years since they've last released an album...but they have been playing shows, so perhaps there is hope!

 

[hermesani]

Holy mother, this sounds amazing!

I’m struggling to find the right words as I’m typing. This sounds great with everything. The resolution, the speed, bass, vocals, it does everything very well. The first track I tested was “American Woman” by Lenny Kravitz, my jaw literally dropped. The one area I was most worried was with soundstage, some claimed it was average. This actually is as good as the Arya V2. Just on resolution alone, it rivals the Susvara on a TOTL chain. I kid you not. This doesn’t need an HQPlayer or an M-Scaler. The transients are insane. Seriously, anyone with the Bravura, go listen to “Midnight” by Joe Satriani and tell me I’m wrong. I may actually write a full review on this.

More impressions to come…

 

[draytonklammer]

Holy mother, this sounds amazing!

I’m struggling to find the right words as I’m typing. This sounds great with everything. The resolution, the speed, bass, vocals, it does everything very well. The first track I tested was “American Woman” by Lenny Kravitz, my jaw literally dropped. The one area I was most worried was with soundstage, some claimed it was average. This actually is as good as the Arya V2. Just on resolution alone, it rivals the Susvara on a TOTL chain. I kid you not. This doesn’t need an HQPlayer or an M-Scaler. The transients are insane. Seriously, anyone with the Bravura, go listen to “Midnight” by Joe Satriani and tell me I’m wrong. I may actually write a full review on this.

More impressions to come…

I tried to warn ya...

In all seriousness, I agree with a number of your impressions.
I have an endgame Susvara and Final D8K rig.
The Bravura, if it has no sub-bass distortion for my use cases, would have been kept as an equal or in favor, depending on the track.

Warwick makes some great products.

 

[headphonefranz]

Holy mother, this sounds amazing!

I’m struggling to find the right words as I’m typing. This sounds great with everything. The resolution, the speed, bass, vocals, it does everything very well. The first track I tested was “American Woman” by Lenny Kravitz, my jaw literally dropped. The one area I was most worried was with soundstage, some claimed it was average. This actually is as good as the Arya V2. Just on resolution alone, it rivals the Susvara on a TOTL chain. I kid you not. This doesn’t need an HQPlayer or an M-Scaler. The transients are insane. Seriously, anyone with the Bravura, go listen to “Midnight” by Joe Satriani and tell me I’m wrong. I may actually write a full review on this.

More impressions to come…

My feeling completely- good to hear these positive experiences!

 

[hermesani]

I tried to warn ya...

In all seriousness, I agree with a number of your impressions.
I have an endgame Susvara and Final D8K rig.
The Bravura, if it has no sub-bass distortion for my use cases, would have been kept as an equal or in favor, depending on the track.

Warwick makes some great products.

If you have a Susvara with a very good chain, I don't see any use of owning a Bravura as it's redundant. For me, the Bravura has filled the role of my Susvara very well since selling them a few years ago.

From all of my listening so far, I haven’t detected any distortion yet. Even with EDM & Hans Zimmer, it does well at reasonable volumes. But if I wanted to crank things up to the 95+ decibel range, I’m not using the Bravura…I’m grabbing my 1266.

The bigger issue for me is the clamp force. A solution I’ve found is stretching them over a case of books between use. It helps reduce the pressure for about an 1.5-2 hrs. My question is will it get better over time or is this the price I pay for endgame SQ?

 

[Aetherhole]

If you have a Susvara with a very good chain, I don't see any use of owning a Bravura as it's redundant. For me, the Bravura has filled the role of my Susvara very well since selling them a few years ago.

From all of my listening so far, I haven’t detected any distortion yet. Even with EDM & Hans Zimmer, it does well at reasonable volumes. But if I wanted to crank things up to the 95+ decibel range, I’m not using the Bravura…I’m grabbing my 1266.

The bigger issue for me is the clamp force. A solution I’ve found is stretching them over a case of books between use. It helps reduce the pressure for about an 1.5-2 hrs. My question is will it get better over time or is this the cost I'll have to pay for endgame SQ?

The clamp doesn’t change from what I’ve experienced. It stays about the same. It was clampier than I’d prefer, but I still was fine wearing it for even up to 4 hours at a time. Unlike any of Audeze headphones I’ve owned or tried, where after about 30 minutes to an hour I had to take them off.

I think the bass distortion doesn’t start happening until louder volumes, not even quite to 90-95db, and it’s mostly with intensive sub-bass. If you’re not getting/hearing that, you’re golden!

 

[draytonklammer]

The clamp doesn’t change from what I’ve experienced. It stays about the same. It was clampier than I’d prefer, but I still was fine wearing it for even up to 4 hours at a time. Unlike any of Audeze headphones I’ve owned or tried, where after about 30 minutes to an hour I had to take them off.

I think the bass distortion doesn’t start happening until louder volumes, not even quite to 90-95db, and it’s mostly with intensive sub-bass. If you’re not getting/hearing that, you’re golden!

The weird part is that mine happened at a lower level than that.
Maybe there's unit to unit variance, or something funky was happening with my gain structure or source.

 

[hermesani]

The weird part is that mine happened at a lower level than that.
Maybe there's unit to unit variance, or something funky was happening with my gain structure or source.

Perhaps. I’ve got it plugged to a Puritan Audio PSM156 power conditioner. Not sure if it’s helped in that regard.

 

[hermesani]

Maxed out at 92 dB before first hint of clipping.

 

[draytonklammer]

Well folks, I've fallen off of the deep end...
Aperio is inbound.

 

[headphonefranz]

I love my experience with the Bravura. I got mine a couple of weeks before Christmas.

I’ve already shared my immense satisfaction and enthusiasm for this system - And will continue to do so.

I’m not for hiding/concealing any drawbacks or indeed – design flaws.

I don’t listen to music at extremely high levels (despite what my wife might say).

I wanted to do a bass/sub-bass check to test (again) what the Bravura is up to in this frequency range.

I set the volume level to 16 clicks – which I found loud enough. Sometimes of course, depending on the recording, we make small adjustments. But for the purposes of this check, I left it at 16 clicks throughout.



I am being scrupulously honest when I say I didn’t experience any distortion. With the exception of Trentemøller’s ‘Chameleon’ – which required a slight adjustment down to 14 clicks.

The other test pieces were:

Inception / Time / Orchestral version

Angel / Massive Attack

Fantasy / The xx

Bad Guy / Billie Eilish

Boilermaker / Royal Blood

Hysteria / Muse

Dancing With A Stranger / Sam Smith

Breathing / Quock

Magnetic / Dillard

Split The Atom / Noisia

Tempted / Jazz Cartier

PEEKABOO - Dirty Monkey / Colossal

Bassline Junkie / Dizzee Rascal



Not only did I not experience distortion – the quality of the bass is superb. It has weight and body and nuance – tight but also very fluid. This was what originally attracted me to the Bravura when I first heard them at the Munich High-end – their extraordinary clarity, resolution, and detail – the lightning-fast transient performance – and the quality of the bass. This was also the case when I spent a bot longer with them at a small ‘home can-jam’.

However – if someone experiences distortion – then they do and my experience doesn’t and cannot negate their experience.

Still – I feel it relevant to have put together this bass/sub-bass set of pieces and check how they work on the Bravura.

There are pieces I can pull out that stretch the sub-bass capacity of the Bravura to and beyond its limits. I can turn the volume level further clicks to the right and create distortion.

But my personal volume levels rarely experience this distortion issue.

Quite the opposite. This Bravura system is phenomenal and feels like the best of all the headphones and amps and dacs I have. I always have to really tear myself away from it.

 

[13candles]

Well folks, I've fallen off of the deep end...
Aperio is inbound.

Wow Congrats sir!
Now all that is left remaining is the HE-1 to complete the Trifecta!

And please do post your honest impressions when your Aperio arrives!

 

[draytonklammer]

Wow Congrats sir!
Now all that is left remaining is the HE-1 to complete the Trifecta!

And please do post your honest impressions when your Aperio arrives!

I'll be happy to share my thoughts with everyone.
Just know that my opinions may be swayed by my personal sound preferences and my own HRTF.

It's possible that I'll love it.
It's equally possible that I trash it.
In fact, the price means that it better be jaw dropping, or I'll end up disappointed.