Spirit Torino Valkyria Headphones Review. Featuring HE-1 orpheus, Aperio & Shangri-La sr.
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- Опубликовано: 27 июл 2024
- A €12000 price tag. A dynamic headphone perhaps like no other?
Let’s put these headphones to the test against the Titans of the industry.
#Headphones compared to:
Sennheiser HE-1, Warwick Aacoustics Aperio, Focal, Utopia, Hifiman Shangri-La-sr, Susvara, Audeze LCD5, ZMF Verite
Amplifiers and DAC - source equipment:
Spirit Torino Sigphrid, HoloAudio Bliss, LTA Z10E, HoloAudio May KTE, Rockna WaveDream, Aperio, Chord Dave
Reviews:
HIFIMAN Shangri-La senior ELECTROSTATIC HEADPHONES REVIEW. The world’s most resolving transducers?
• The world’s most resol...
WARWICK ACOUSTICS APERIO REVIEW. Coming undone by the worlds best electrostatic system.
• Coming undone by the w...
SENNHEISER HE-1 ORPHEUS. Munich High-End A Seventy Thousand Euro Experience
• SENNHEISER HE-1 ORPHEU...
Warwick Acoustics Aperio vs Sennheiser HE-1 Orpheus. When titans collide.
• Warwick Acoustics Aper...
MONOBLOCKING THE BENCHMARK AHB2 POWER AMPLIFIEr. Unleashing Susvara, blowing the doors wide open!!
• MONOBLOCKING THE BENCH...
Business enquiries:
ConvinceMeAudio@gmail.com
The CMA “ambush of tigers” Patreon page: www.patreon.com/ConvinceMeAud...
0:00 Timestamps
01:25 The Spirit Torino Valkyria and the story
02:00 Unboxing the Valkyria, specs and first impressions.
08:00 Hands-on with the £12000 Valkyria
10:00 The Chain, the Valkyria and overall sound
11:00 Understanding the Spirit Torino Valkyria
19:44 Spirit Torino Sigphrid headphone amp
21:21 Valkyria vs Shangri-La, sr. Aperio HE-1
25:15 Valkyria FR breakdown Vs HE-1 Aperio
30:00 Let me paint you a picture
34:35 Caveats of the Spirit Torino Valkyria 
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I have the Spirit Torino Radiante. It lso has a very wonky tuning. It makes me wonder whether they really don't know how to tune headphones.
Great review dude. They look like Grado's if they were made out metal.
I was interested in their headphones as I kind of like that "upgraded Grado" design but at the end it looks like they also failed in tuning as well as the ridiculous pricing.
I don't know. I appreciate the review and I generally agree with you, but maybe not this time. I only spent 15 minutes with the Valkyria and another 15 minutes with the Centauri, both on top notch systems (30K+). Both headphones sounded off to me with a weird and wonky tuning. Without knowing what I have on my heads, I would have guessed the Valkyria is a 2K headphone with a tuning that is just not for me. With the Centauri I would have guessed that is a faulty $300 headphone. I felt the same way regarding build quality. Sorry Spirit Torino, but that was my first impression.
valkyria is €12000 lol
May I ask how you can afford a headphone for fkn 12k??? I could get a car for that...
Fantastic review - So those HP arent so good for electronic music, what would be your top pick for that genre, thanks always
Ooo edm dubstep, electronic music. My favourite are probably AB1266TC on an incredibly good set up. Susvara utopia.
Is Aperio your favorite pair of headphones right now? I've been trying to decide if I want to upgrade to them from my Susvara. Shang Sr. felt like a Susvara side grade to me. Larger soundstage, better resolution, but I felt like it lost out in the bass region enough to throw off the tonal balance. Ended up selling mine.
Great review, Koji.
But if you're willing to take suggestions, please try to include more of a structured comparative section/value to your reviews, as this is the one thing that I'm still largely missing. And it's kind of the most valuable part of any review, otherwise the review is kind of hanging in limbo.
It actually doesn't relate to this particular review that much, as it has some comparisons included, but I just happen to share my suggestion now.
You might have a look at how Michael from Director's Garage, Lachlan from Passion for Sound or Sajid from Amplify Audio do it.
Thanks and good luck!
Suggestions are always welcome. Of course, can you break it down a little more and give me an example
From what I gather from your comment, we already do this in fact we’ve been doing this since day one.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding this is why I asked for the clarification, because our reviews if you watch it through, and not skip around, is separated into chapters,
Hence, the timestamps and chapters, hardware, comfort, sound, comparisons, chain, set up, conclusion
But if you’re talking about something else, please let me know and I’ll see what I can do
Just listened to these as canjam nyc 2024 and, to me they were the best in show for classical and metal. Didn't get to hear the aperio or bravura as people hogged it the whole show. But what it did with Twilight Force and Jill from Unlucky Morpheus, I will never forget, it went beyond even a live performance and left me physically shaking afterwards. For what they are designed for they crushed the Utopia into the dirt and even a properly driven Susvara as good as it was couldn't match. Only thing that got even remotely close was the T+A Soltiare P which was runner up for best of show from what heard as it's timbre, note depth, and staging were superbly balanced.
I do not doubt it one bit they are extraordinarily special
The 1266 phi TC is a bargain by comparison. For metal and classical, which is better in absolute terms?
Unless something has changed in the last month Furutech doesn’t make 4-pin XLR with that design :)
Custom for Spirit, Torino,
First review of headphones in history without listening to them at all )
What do you mean LOL
That's a hardcore cable. :)
I wonder how the Pulsar compares to the Valkyria. Only difference seems to be Al enclosure vs Ti.
Extremely different
A few months in:
Tuning isn't "woinky"...unless you wish to call Ricci a wonk. These are artfully, skillfully, and very intentionally designed to be what they are.
I dannot imagine getting a propoer impression of them unless you can spend lots of time with them, without switching to other cans. The "subjective prefefence in respect to a specific set of genres" is pretty well-put. First immersions, or distracted impressions, will lead to confusion. They do not present like headphones, or any I know of. They open a space into the music which. is more like what you'd expect from real music in a real, ideal space. Space, distance, intense and nuanced macrodynamic, speed, and ifnintely fine-grained microdynamics. I won't get (much) into the notion that you need a flat frequency response... the physics and the philosophy and and the reality of music in an idiosyncartic space dictate that any real musical event will have many qualities which reflect the acoustic context. You could narrow it down to the "though shalt" which demands that the cans pass along precisely what went into the recording device, but this is a conceit which will often be unrealistic (pun unintended) and even inimcal to the challenge of designing gear whichreflects a particular aesthetic, one artisans vision of music reproduction. Tehre is no deception here: Rici and team created what they wished to, and I can only conclude that they were highly successful in doing so. The idiosyncrasies are not chaotic, they are not somehow off-the-mark. Taken on their own terms, these headphones, after a dedicated period of non-judgmental listening, some psychological burn-in, open up into a kind artful vision of how music OUGHT to manifest. You might not like it, but it is not an error. With some caveats well-articulated by ConvinceMeAudio, and after some actual burn in of these technologically unusual and powerful speakers, the Valkyria Titanium are extraordinarily articulate, controlled, and both nuanced and slammin', as true to acoustic timbres as anything I've heard, and somehow also grippingly persuasive on well (not over-)produced metal, prog, acostic jazz, and orchestral music.
If the music is overly compressed, syhetic-sounding pop, electronica, or is already bloated and mid-bass obese, you will not like them.
But then, a Lamborghini Huracan is not intended for a relaxed toodle around town. It makes demands, and handled competently, it can change the way you experience and think about music.
They're different, divisive, over-the-top.... or they're as friggin' awesome but strange as a limited edition engineer's passion project ought to be. This is by a length and a half the most grippingly dynamic headphone I've ever heard, and I've listened to almost all of the flagship cans. They break the rules and hearts of flat-neutral-obedient engineer-listeners, but in service of a vision which takes many aspects of its performance to a qualitatively different level from anything else. I didn’t respond to them at first. I thought there was something wrong. No sparkle. No air. Fat midrange, like someone with a chesty voice speaking too closely to my ear. But by the end of the first few jazz tunes, and then some small chamber orchestra stuff….Bartok, I think, I got the sense that I was missing what was familiar from other TOTL headphones.
“Neutrality”…. Which is neither neutral, nor true to the music. We can have philosophical discussions of what the audio language means, whether a transducer should do nothing whatsoever but send a signal through with a flat frequency response…. or whether every ear and every venue impart their own flavor upon any and every musical event. And whether we must defer to the gods of an antiseptic universe, someone thing inimical to the aesthetic, emotional, even spiritual experience of music. My work, my writing, as a psychologist and philosopher, has been concerned with the making and perception of music, in real-time, with real people. Music as “isomorphic to the affects”, the analog of human affective experience, and the complexity of dynamic relations which link those affective elements to the intelligent, responsive human being. Especially in improvised music, people “speaking” music together. And then, though I will say that these works of audio art are not ideal for every genre (commercial studio-produced compressed pop is not likely to please you), I suddenly got it.
These cans do NOTHING we expect from the extant Uber-cans. There is nothing etched; leading edges aren’t highlighted; the forest and the trees are equally well-represented, and the articulation, a better term than resolution, for me, is unparalleled. You are not comparing the music to real live performances….you experience the music AS an event happening in the present. Both fully fleshed out, rounded, full of texture, BUT also more informative, with more detail in every aspect of the listening experience than any of the detail-fiend headphones.
They are qualitatively different. Powerful, dynamic beyond any headphone I have - and that includes the Abyss 1266 Phi TC - gripping visceral…but with a perfect consistency and fidelity of each of those musical elements regardless of the complexity or intensity of everything else going on. They are not my all-purpose headphones. But they are transcendently satisfying on the majority of recordings and genres. They communicate - much as their descriptions and reviews often mention - in a more convincing and nuanced
Far beyond audiophile jargon and reference points, these will bring your attention to the presence, pleasure, beauty, and the emotional verisimilitude of the music, leaving sonic descriptors and analysis many miles besides the point. These are ARTICULATE headphones with infinitely fine grained, infinitely extended micro-and- macrodynamic, speed, absolute control over the most dramatic dynamic shifts and extremes WITHOUT any deterioration of pure timbre, harmonic spectra, or of consistent time and space relationships between instruments and musical lines. No parameter of the music drifts or fails when some other comes to the fore. They are effective and integrated in this way at any level of complexity or volume.
Compressed studio pop recordings will not be forgiven by these; but for some reason heavy-and-progressive metal, chamber music, acoustic jazz, singer-songwriter, and many orchestral recordings are all likely to sound wonderful and REAL in the manner of some of the best in-room speakers.
They're heavy - blocks of titanium, and comfort is average, but they're fine - they don't get bag - and I've placed Dekoni nuggets on the headband, which ease the load. But they've been fine for extended listening. The drape, as you might expect, is similar to bigger Grado headphones, particularly the PS1000 and 2000 varieties, whose design scheme it seems to follow, perhaps to an homage to what I believe is Ricci's early experience working with Grado 'phones. Or not. The shape of the band, the rod and gimbal adjustability, but with the very pleasant and cool vented pads, all contribute to a just-fine physical experience of wearing them.
The pure silver cable is itself a piece of nice jewelry, ornate and very Italian objets d'art in look and feel, but nice to work with, on the long side, and....affixed, non-detachable. That was an emphatic design choice, reflecting the Valkyria Titanium as a whole work, meant to be Ricci's statement, not something to tweak; and besides, making it a fixed cable eliminates one are of structural vulnerability, and one less junction....however important some listeners will consider that. I don't mind. I have swapped out some cables for designer ones, but it doesn't feel important here.
"Neutrality", in this work of transducer-art, is so far besides the point that I keep envisioning the "if she floats, she's a witch" scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. These sound as they do, with some serious and unique technology, because their character reflects a distinct but hardly-uncommon way of listening to music, the vision of its designer.
Whether you like it is a separate issue; I am one of a number of user-reviewers who have been thrilled by the highly-refined and sonically rich armbar of dynamic control and infinitely fine-grained resolution. They're fast, slammin', refined, lovely, at times euphonically suffusing the music with a slight golden glow but with the muscle and pure agility to dare you to make 'em cut it out. They tell you everything. That drop of panache spoils nothing, as long as you don't need your gear to be all "just the facts" antiseptic. You get all the facts, fast, and eloquently, and frankly, most music should sound this good anyway, if it doesn't already.
Very articulate in your assessment, and I concur
They are a marvel that need to be heard in the right environment and for the purposes they designed for they are astonishing
I have never ever heard mid range like it cello, electric guitar, and my goodness drums
@@ConvinceMeAudio cello. Last thing I listened to was Chopin cello and piano sonata, and the cello, played by Nathaniel Rosen, had me near tears. The flow dynamic nuances that make the music what it is… And before that, I was listening to Slipknot. As fast, and harder hitting than the big Abyss. with more harmonic depth and no less clarity.
I am about to drop them at the shipping center because they've been sold. Needed the money, and there will be a period of grieving!
And I have to thank you for the recommendation. You were right on the money, so to speak, and maybe I'll get my hands on another pair one day… i'm very curious about the pulsar, about how that unique driver functions in a more lightweight enclosure.
When are you reviewing Zmf Caldera?
I’ve actually decided to reshoot the video, I’ve been spending the last three days with it again I fallen in love LOL I did not find the soul previously. Plus I’m doing a patrolling section 2, I plan to film it next week I’m going to scrap the original review.
So Caldera is amazing?@@ConvinceMeAudio
Very interesting headphone for someone like myself who listens to 99% of classical and the rest is acoustic.
You really should try the Grado flagships like GS3000x, GS3000e, PS2000e and PS1000e.
I think this would fall right in step of a heapdhone who's wheel house is acoustic and vocal is it's wheel house. But still versatile for other things as well. But definitely acoustic is it's forte.
Hello, I have one question. I have the Aperio and I absolutely love it but I'm intrigued about what you mentioned in this review about these being amazing for rock/metal which is what I primarily listen to. Is it worth it getting them having the Aperio? and if yes, which amp do you recommend for them? I would be using the Aperio as DAC/preamp. Thanks!
Over aperio no
Because Aperio is excellent at absolutely everything and it’s comfortable and it’s beautiful and it serves all purposes
My advice do not sell it, but if you’re going to AIC, 10, Riviera and lampizator Golden, Atlantic, maybe or something, but I think it’s a bad idea
@@ConvinceMeAudio Thanks for saving me 15,000 dls! I sold everything after getting the Aperio and looks like it'll continue to be like that. You're the man!
@@grayfox198 in the future if the opportunity arises, I recommend trying a lampizator dac on the system, it’s mesmerising
This would be the official headphone of LeStat De Lioncourt from Queen of the damned. Beautiful set but very taste specific.
Wait 20kg for the box? Mother of God.
"no limits on cost, materials, or technology" and they made a grado 🥴
And you can use these as a weapon.
Too heavy. Too costly.
Tungsten, here I come...
Hell yes
This was one ugly looking headphone. Looks like a metal Grado. Not for me…
Great review but even you cant save these "headphones". They look like Grados and they sound as bad, good job Torino. A 12k euros joke. Even the most expensive equipment will not save this atrocity. Looks like a typical cash grab.