![DSC_0485[1].JPG](https://cdn.head-fi.org/a/12210005.jpg)
(I posted this in the Aperio sponsor thread here but figured it'd be good to make an actual headphone forum thread for these two)
So I heard the Bravura and Aperio at Munich and was VERY impressed.
This was my first time hearing any Warwick acoustics stuff and I went into it not at all knowing what to expect, and left the room eager to spend some proper time with them.
Martin has kindly loaned me the Aperio Black and the Bravura for review, and I wanted to share some initial thoughts after spending 24h with them.
Please keep in mind, these are very much early impressions, and I'll have more thorough thoughts in the final video review for both.
Firstly, I've always been quite mixed on Estats. I WANT to like them, I really really do as the resolution they can offer is certainly above other driver types in my opinion, and there are a fair few estats that have come very close to being something I'd want, but they almost always suffered from at least one and usually a few of the issues below which prevented me from being willing to spend significant money on them:
- Upper midrange honk and/or etchiness
- Picky timbre (some stuff being excellent and others being awful)
- Lowend that was quick, but lacked any sense of physicality and engagement
- Not particularly great staging (mostly an issue with the lambda series)
I did actually own the Stax Lambda Signature for some time, and I ended up selling it because despite being the most RESOLVING and detailed headphone I'd ever heard, it just sucked at too many other areas for me to want to use it much.
The Stax X9000 however was a bit of a game changer and it did address most of the issues almost entirely, it's a serious step up over any Estat I'd heard previously.
But then...I heard the Aperio.
Oh boy, this takes the crown for most resolving headphone I've tried.
The sheer level of detail this thing can provide is astounding. And it does it without being dry, aggressive, or honestly suffering any major drawbacks at all (besides the price!).
Aperio - The good:
- Fairly certain this is the most resolving headphone I've tried. And whilst many headphones come across instantly as resolving partly due to being very forward in their presentation, the Aperio does it in a much more refined sense, and the longer you spend with them the more you appreciate what they can do here.
It's to an extent that swapping from the Aperio to pretty much any headphone I have here currently, it makes them feel sluggish by comparison. It's that impressive.
- Timbre is excellent. Everything from percussion to piano strings sounds incredibly true to life on these, with an ability to draw out every last detail and bit of texture of an instrument without colouring it. Brass instruments are a particular standout.
There is one slight asterisk here which is mentioned as the first point in 'the bad' section below.
- Lowend, actually really good lowend.
This is probably the biggest negative stereotype of estats, that they 'have no bass' or 'can't slam'. And indeed it's been one of the biggest issues for me when trying (or owning) previous estats.
Some estats like the X9000 improve this to a point where you don't feel you're 'missing' anything, but they aren't really a particularly macrodynamic headphone or one that would be all that engaging for percussion heavy or electronic tracks. And then some like the Audeze CRBN improve this further but are not as refined as the X9000 in other areas (at least from my short time demoing them, I enjoyed them though but X9000 did seem to outclass them in overall technical ability).
The Aperio though are incredibly fast, impactful, and controlled. With deep reaching subbass that can rumble like thunder and hit like a truck. This isn't just 'good for an estat', this is truly excellent period. The drum solo in 'Contact' by daft punk or 'firøye' by pølaroit especially at parts like 5:05 onward is something to behold on these headphones.
- Staging
The spatial presentation of these headphones has a similar ability to the Susvara to put things more clearly in a 3d space than the vast majority of other headphones, whilst also being overall bigger than the Susvara. It's airy but tactile, big but with the ability to be intimate when needed and layer/vary the distance and position of elements very well. For me good spatial presentation is a combination of maximum size of stage, and ability to place things convincingly in a particular location within it.
Stuff like the HD800 is great at the former but not the latter, Susvara is great at the latter but just ok at the former. The Aperio excels with both.
- External Sources
One drawback with the original Sonoma and the Bravura is that the analog inputs do go through an ADC to apply some EQ before being converted back to analog and driving the headphones. This means that the benefit of using an external DAC is somewhat diminished.
With the Aperio, that is not the case. All analog inputs are kept analog through and through with no AD/DA conversion involved and so you can happily use an external DAC should you wish to do so.
The Aperio cannot be used on other energizers however and you can't run other estats on the Aperio amp. This is because the Aperio bias voltage is WAYYYY higher than stax, at 1800V. (Stax are 230V normal bias or 580V pro bias).
Having said that, I've found the internal DAC on the Aperio to be very good
Aperio - The Bad:
- In regards to timbre, only slight asterisk here is that on some vocals you can hear a tiny bit of the 1-2khz 'honk' that many estats have, but really only to a very small degree. About the same as the X9000 in this regard, and both the X9000 and this MASSIVELY improve on that area from all the other estats I've tried, enough that it's only really something that you can tell is there if you listen for it explicitly and directly compare to a planar or something.
- It's far beyond the realm of affordability for the majority of people
- Fit/Clamp
The Aperio are very comfortable overall, but somewhat clampy and this may bother some people. I've not had an issue with wearing them for long periods of time and in fact have been using them for about 8hrs during my workday, but it depends how sensitive to clamp you are. I also have a MASSIVE head (have to wear these on the max adjustment and honestly a notch bigger would be ideal) so part of this could just be my enormous noggin but worth mentioning.
- Vol Control
I don't typically listen too loud, and the Aperio vol adjustment steps are not linear the whole way through. It does the following steps:
-72dB, -60dB, -48dB, -36dB, -30dB, -24dB, -21dB, -19dB, -17dB, then 1dB steps from then on.
The problem I have is I seem to fall between the -30dB and -19dB range which means the volume adjustment is not all that granular. I can overcome this by setting it to -19dB then using roon DSP vol control for fine adjustment, but it'd be nice to have some further granularity at lower output levels.
Aperio - Summary
Wow, just wow. I prefer these to the Sennheiser HE1, and this is as close to 'perfect' I've heard in an estat and hands down one of the best headphone listening experiences I've had. These are well beyond what I can afford but if I was able to I'd be seriously wanting a pair.
Bravura
I need to spend more time with the Bravura before posting any solid impressions as the Aperio has captivated my attention thus far and I've not given the Bravura enough listening time.
I'll update this post once I've done so.
I have not had any experience with the Sonoma so cannot comment on that or differences between it and the Aperio/Bravura
So I heard the Bravura and Aperio at Munich and was VERY impressed.
This was my first time hearing any Warwick acoustics stuff and I went into it not at all knowing what to expect, and left the room eager to spend some proper time with them.
Martin has kindly loaned me the Aperio Black and the Bravura for review, and I wanted to share some initial thoughts after spending 24h with them.
Please keep in mind, these are very much early impressions, and I'll have more thorough thoughts in the final video review for both.
Firstly, I've always been quite mixed on Estats. I WANT to like them, I really really do as the resolution they can offer is certainly above other driver types in my opinion, and there are a fair few estats that have come very close to being something I'd want, but they almost always suffered from at least one and usually a few of the issues below which prevented me from being willing to spend significant money on them:
- Upper midrange honk and/or etchiness
- Picky timbre (some stuff being excellent and others being awful)
- Lowend that was quick, but lacked any sense of physicality and engagement
- Not particularly great staging (mostly an issue with the lambda series)
I did actually own the Stax Lambda Signature for some time, and I ended up selling it because despite being the most RESOLVING and detailed headphone I'd ever heard, it just sucked at too many other areas for me to want to use it much.
The Stax X9000 however was a bit of a game changer and it did address most of the issues almost entirely, it's a serious step up over any Estat I'd heard previously.
But then...I heard the Aperio.
Oh boy, this takes the crown for most resolving headphone I've tried.
The sheer level of detail this thing can provide is astounding. And it does it without being dry, aggressive, or honestly suffering any major drawbacks at all (besides the price!).
Aperio - The good:
- Fairly certain this is the most resolving headphone I've tried. And whilst many headphones come across instantly as resolving partly due to being very forward in their presentation, the Aperio does it in a much more refined sense, and the longer you spend with them the more you appreciate what they can do here.
It's to an extent that swapping from the Aperio to pretty much any headphone I have here currently, it makes them feel sluggish by comparison. It's that impressive.
- Timbre is excellent. Everything from percussion to piano strings sounds incredibly true to life on these, with an ability to draw out every last detail and bit of texture of an instrument without colouring it. Brass instruments are a particular standout.
There is one slight asterisk here which is mentioned as the first point in 'the bad' section below.
- Lowend, actually really good lowend.
This is probably the biggest negative stereotype of estats, that they 'have no bass' or 'can't slam'. And indeed it's been one of the biggest issues for me when trying (or owning) previous estats.
Some estats like the X9000 improve this to a point where you don't feel you're 'missing' anything, but they aren't really a particularly macrodynamic headphone or one that would be all that engaging for percussion heavy or electronic tracks. And then some like the Audeze CRBN improve this further but are not as refined as the X9000 in other areas (at least from my short time demoing them, I enjoyed them though but X9000 did seem to outclass them in overall technical ability).
The Aperio though are incredibly fast, impactful, and controlled. With deep reaching subbass that can rumble like thunder and hit like a truck. This isn't just 'good for an estat', this is truly excellent period. The drum solo in 'Contact' by daft punk or 'firøye' by pølaroit especially at parts like 5:05 onward is something to behold on these headphones.
- Staging
The spatial presentation of these headphones has a similar ability to the Susvara to put things more clearly in a 3d space than the vast majority of other headphones, whilst also being overall bigger than the Susvara. It's airy but tactile, big but with the ability to be intimate when needed and layer/vary the distance and position of elements very well. For me good spatial presentation is a combination of maximum size of stage, and ability to place things convincingly in a particular location within it.
Stuff like the HD800 is great at the former but not the latter, Susvara is great at the latter but just ok at the former. The Aperio excels with both.
- External Sources
One drawback with the original Sonoma and the Bravura is that the analog inputs do go through an ADC to apply some EQ before being converted back to analog and driving the headphones. This means that the benefit of using an external DAC is somewhat diminished.
With the Aperio, that is not the case. All analog inputs are kept analog through and through with no AD/DA conversion involved and so you can happily use an external DAC should you wish to do so.
The Aperio cannot be used on other energizers however and you can't run other estats on the Aperio amp. This is because the Aperio bias voltage is WAYYYY higher than stax, at 1800V. (Stax are 230V normal bias or 580V pro bias).
Having said that, I've found the internal DAC on the Aperio to be very good
Aperio - The Bad:
- In regards to timbre, only slight asterisk here is that on some vocals you can hear a tiny bit of the 1-2khz 'honk' that many estats have, but really only to a very small degree. About the same as the X9000 in this regard, and both the X9000 and this MASSIVELY improve on that area from all the other estats I've tried, enough that it's only really something that you can tell is there if you listen for it explicitly and directly compare to a planar or something.
- It's far beyond the realm of affordability for the majority of people
- Fit/Clamp
The Aperio are very comfortable overall, but somewhat clampy and this may bother some people. I've not had an issue with wearing them for long periods of time and in fact have been using them for about 8hrs during my workday, but it depends how sensitive to clamp you are. I also have a MASSIVE head (have to wear these on the max adjustment and honestly a notch bigger would be ideal) so part of this could just be my enormous noggin but worth mentioning.
- Vol Control
I don't typically listen too loud, and the Aperio vol adjustment steps are not linear the whole way through. It does the following steps:
-72dB, -60dB, -48dB, -36dB, -30dB, -24dB, -21dB, -19dB, -17dB, then 1dB steps from then on.
The problem I have is I seem to fall between the -30dB and -19dB range which means the volume adjustment is not all that granular. I can overcome this by setting it to -19dB then using roon DSP vol control for fine adjustment, but it'd be nice to have some further granularity at lower output levels.
Aperio - Summary
Wow, just wow. I prefer these to the Sennheiser HE1, and this is as close to 'perfect' I've heard in an estat and hands down one of the best headphone listening experiences I've had. These are well beyond what I can afford but if I was able to I'd be seriously wanting a pair.
Bravura
I need to spend more time with the Bravura before posting any solid impressions as the Aperio has captivated my attention thus far and I've not given the Bravura enough listening time.
I'll update this post once I've done so.
I have not had any experience with the Sonoma so cannot comment on that or differences between it and the Aperio/Bravura
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