Italian headphone manufacturer Spirit Torino has more in common with bespoke leather fashion houses than audiophile headphone brands. Everything they do is Italian through and through, and just about every visual aspect can be customized to your heart’s content. Their focus on touch, look, and experience is unique in the world of ultra high-end headphones, and from the moment you pick one of their pieces up or touch the volume wheel on their amplifier, it’s clear that there’s something that makes the Spirit Torino experience special.

Reporting by Jameson Mourafetis

This holistic experience also extends to the sound. It can only be described as emotive. Are they dead neutral or technically focused? Nope, but the moment you put their headphones on and listen to a familiar track, you. don’t. care. The grade 5 titanium framed, isobaric loaded twin-pulse, dynamic driver Valkyria is full bodied, fleshed out, and textured.

Pulsar, whose driver is identical to the Valkyria but housed in an aluminum frame, sounds surprisingly different. It evokes the same level of emotional involvement with a lighter, less weighty touch. The Centauri headphone, Spirit Torino’s first foray into planar-magnetic driver design and newest addition to their lineup, offers a more neutral, technical, airy headphone experience without sacrificing dynamics and may appeal more to the traditional high-end headphone buyer.

Between the lacquered wood finish, the large, Pulsar cap volume knob, and the engraved side panels depicting an ancient map of the Italian City, Turin (Torino in Italian), Spirit Torino’s gorgeous Sigfrid hybrid amplifier exudes high-end Italian design. It was clearly designed with Valkyria and Pulsar in mind, does an excellent job extending the Spirit Torino experience through to the high-end electronics space. I highly recommend giving these pairings a listen, as they’re unlike anything else you’ll find with other headphones.