I was a several decades long 2 channel guy. About 6 years ago I retired at which point I promised my wife that I would give her back her living room and forgo the wall of speakers and HiFi Gear. I’m a 60's kid and love classic rock, major Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, Dire Straits fan, but also lots of Jazz both old and new style like Diana Krall etc. So I like slam and bass and dynamics etc.

So, retirement caused me to enter the headphone arena. After several moderate set ups my first serious jump in HP's was the DCS Bartok and the AB 1266. I could have stopped right there if not for the unbelievable amount of Hype over the Susvara. So, I had to try them, love them but..........they needed more power. Enter the DCS Lina Stack. DCS in my view is a great company also with a terrific upgrade patch in both software and hardware and I liked their Mosaic app and find their support to be terrific. I loved the "Ring" DAC approach so again I’d have stopped there the stack is great for all but.....you guessed it the Susvara. The Lina amp will play Susvara loud but not optimized IMHO. So, the Journey began in Ernest . I tried a few other options and demos and was sold on trying to build my system around the Susvara.

In my Hi-Fi days I had 2 channel electrostatic speakers, (Martin Logan to name one). I absolutely loved the crystal-clear clarity of the E-Stat so off I went on trying several e-stat set ups, Stax, Shangri-La, etc. Then I started reading about ‘APERIO’. It also intrigued me the Aperio was also an ‘all in one’, (when you look at the pricing it is high but one must remember it includes the Headphones, DAC, Streamer, Amp, Energizer, even high-quality cabling, all in a desktop amp style component). I had to hear it and hear it I did. I took the plunge twice, (that's another longer story), that said I’m today as a result TWICE as sure about APERIO!

The APERIO for me was the Susvara on steroids with BETTER realistic bass and unparalleled clarity and definition. Now here is where it can get interesting. Most of us learn to hear music that emphasis how we like to listen to music. Like if you like slam and thunder bass the AB 1266 will keep you in heaven for sure. However IMHO as fun as that is it's not actually the way the track was mixed or intended many times. Over emphasizing or exaggerating a frequency is fine if that's what you want and enjoy. If you want to seriously feel like you got invited to sitting with your favorite artist, say, Mark Knopfler or Diana Krall or Paul McCartney next to their piano or guitar etc., the APERIO will do that better than anything I have ever heard!!!

Seriously I have had listening sessions where I actually can't believe how all around overall wonderful and lucky I feel to have such a great music system experience. It's just "PERFECT'. Again, let me say perfect is not for everyone. (GoldenSound and ConvienceMeAudio have wonderful reviews of APERIO).

Friends can and will point out where you can get more this or that than Aperio provides. YEP that's precisely what APERIO is aiming at. Not Warwicks’ flavor of the music but just ‘The Music’ the way the artist probably intended. So, when you go into APERIO it’s important as when you go into anything special and out of the expectation game with a clean pallet. This deserves caps for me, so I'll say it... Right now, in October 2024, I think "APERIO IS THE FINEST REPRODUCTION OF MUSIC SOUND IN A HEADPHONE SYSTEM AT ANY PRICE" again, my opinion. But a six-decade mucho $$$$ of investment opinion over the years I will add. When I do a listening session with APERIO I just don't want to take the headphone off. I just can't say enough good things about it. Add to it Warwick Acoustics, and the guy who fronts the Headphone Business, Martin Roberts, deliver the kind of support you should expect to get in this price segment, but sadly often do not.

Disclaimer time: I have zero connections to Warwick Acoustics or APERIO, I’m just simply blown away enough to care to write this stuff. Warwick just announced a "Golden Sound" upgrade / update to the APERIO. I am counting the days...!