Review: Obravo Cupid – Bravo!

Today we share the review of the Obravo Cupid, the first ever affordable IEM from the luxury brand.

Disclaimer: Obravo provided me a Cupid sample during our visit at CanJam London 2019 show. The commercial price of the Cupid is between 249 £ – 299 £ which converts to around 350-400 $. 

Intro

The IEM market had been dominated by Balanced Armature Drivers once. Times have changed, and now we see companies using variety of drivers in their monitors. Of course it’s very nice to see the developments in drivers such as Electrostatic, Planar and Piezoelectric.

The implementation of these drivers is not an easy task, but a lot of brands are pushing to get that advantage which these provide in certain areas. I will certainly look for more and test more IEMs containing these technologies in the near future. Personal audio, especially in the portable field, has come a long way.

About oBravo

Obravo brand was first reviewed by our boss Lieven with their super-expensive IEMs. The EAMT-1A was the first one before the arrival of the Ra C Cu, which originally had a whopping price 10.000$. Our 52nd and huge final giveaway still continues for that item, so don’t miss that one out.

According to Lieven, the EAMT-1A is “crazy expensive but crazy good” and “simply is the best sounding universal inear monitor that ever was in the HFN headquarters“, once driven up with a proper amplifier.

Obravo Cupid

Listening to music is enjoying the journey, audio system is merely a tool

oBravo was established in 2006, dedicated in the research and development of audio systems and professionally focusing on technological advances of audio speakers, computer speakers, peripherals and Apple accessories. The company is dedicated to its core value of professional excellence, design, innovation, high quality, attitude and change.

The company was first became known as a headphone manufacturer with its special “Air Motion Transformer” technology. They decided to implement it to their earphones after its success in the full size headphone department.

Although being a Taiwanese company, Obravo has many distributors across Europe, Asia and America. In Europe, AudioConcierge is one of those addresses to get this new IEM.

About Cupid

As I remarked, oBravo has been known for their super high end audio products but this has now changed with the oBravo Cupid. The Cupid has been introduced as oBravo’s entry level offering at a modest price level. The configuration inside the Cupid is quite unorthodox with oBravo’s patented 8mm Planar Tweeter, alongside a 6mm Neodymium Dynamic Driver. So yes, it’s a hybrid earphone, but it’s not like the hybrid earphones that we’re used to.

The inner housing of the earphone is made from brass, and the outer casing electroplated. It arrives with a high quality OCC Litz cable with a gold plated 2.5mm BAL jack. You have 4.4mm and 3.5mm adapter options as well and that affects the final price.

I only received the earphones without a package, so I can’t comment on the box and contents. But as far as I know, the package includes;

• 1.2m OCC litz cable with gold plated 2.5mm balanced plug
• 2.5mm to 3.5mm Adapter
• Silicone Eartips S/M/L
• Comply Foam Eartips S/M/L

Obravo Cupid

Design

Elegance and modernness are the two words that come to my mind when I look at the Cupid. The shiny surface certainly looks very cool, especially when exposed to good natural light. The cable connectors could be a little bit better because the silver color doesn’t match with the shells, but it’s still nice as it is.

The oBravo logo on the face-plate area could’ve been more centered with better rotational alignment. In my opinion, the logo could’ve also been a bit bigger to give the earphone a distinctive look. But these are just my opinions. After all, design is a subjective topic.

Build Quality

The new oBravo Cupid has excellent build quality, especially for the asking price, and I’m sure you can use this earphone for a long time without a problem. The shell consists of two parts which are assembled together perfectly. The electroplated material feels very nice in hand, which is a little bit heavy but not too much.

The nozzles are rock solid as well since they’re one-piece together with the inner shell part. I also like the aluminum mesh on the tip of the nozzle which is quite robust. I normally don’t like aluminum filters on the nozzles, because I think it’s a liability in the long run. But the Cupid’s nozzle filters sit really tight and sturdy.

As you probably know, oBravo uses a proprietary MMCX type of connection on the connectors. In my experience, this connection type is quite robust but it’s not the easiest one when connecting and removing the cable. I had some hard times when I tried to connect the cable because of the stiffness. Nevertheless, it’s a very secure connection indeed.

The review continues on PAGE 2 by clicking here using the page numbers below