Review: Warbler Prelude

3. Cable

The cable that came with my Prelude is a Linum cable which everyone knows is like the most comfortable cable ever. On top of that the Linum cables sound really good too. On the Warbler website we can see you can choose between either a stock black, gray or beige finished cable or the Linum cable we received.

As we didn’t get the normal cable, I can’t say anything about their quality. I suggest reading up on the Linum cables HERE. Personally I would recommend getting a Linum cable over the stock cable anytime. I’ve used a lot of different cables with the Prelude but in the end I settled for the Effect Audio Leonidas cable, which we talked about in detail HERE. It’s not that the Linum cable wasn’t sounding good, I just like the Leo a little more.

4. Price & Accessories

Nowadays you can easily find custom monitors starting from $300 and going all the way up to $4000. The Warbler Prelude starts at $1099 and as said, you’ll pay extra in case you have special building instructions/options. Shipping the Prelude home to you will cost you between $30 and $45 depending on the shipping method used.

The Warbler Prelude comes with a cable (see above), a Pelican carrying case, a cleaning tool, cleaning cloth, 6.3mm adapter and some dehumidifier caps.

$1099 is a lot of money but I can tell you already that the Prelude sounds better than some of the high end CIEMs in my collection and looking at it like that, it’s so very much worth its price. We’ll get back to the price and its performance later in this article.

5. Customer Service

Being a reviewer I didn’t follow the regular ordering procedure but everything is explained on the website. Baran said the following:

For the ordering process we are thinking about a 4 week period. Once we have the ear impressions we will inform our customer on a regular basis. For shipping, we will use both standard local post airmail and private shipping companies such as FedEx, DHL etc. For countries with problematic customs, we will try to help our customer as much as we can.

If you have any specific questions on how Warbler works, I suggest you sending them a mail ([email protected]). My contacts with the Warbler team always were very pleasant and they are all really genuinely nice guys, they’re a please to deal with.

6. Sound 

Take 1 – Warbler Audio 

When it comes to the sound our primary objectives were maximum resolution, naturalness, cleanness and last but not least achieving the best transient response. While working on these things we also paid attention to the signature, to not become tiring and keep the balance throughout the whole spectrum.

Warbler Audio is obsessed when it comes to resolution, naturalness and transient response. Thanks to the technology we used in our monitor, the sound shouldn’t get distorted even when it reaches the high volume levels where many other high end products get distortion. That’s actually another topic we worked on during our benchmark phase. When our monitor finally does get distortion, it is at the volume levels higher than those of many of the 5+ driver monitors. That shows that we are able to achieve the headroom level of other competitors.

Our obsession, or maybe I should say passion of transient response, can show itself when it comes to heavy metal songs because of the cleanness of the sound reproduction. The resolution level can be seen by realistic tones of cymbals, details of vocals and how easy the contrabass can be followed during the song.

In short Warbler describes the Prelude as follows:

• Overall accurate tonality
• Smooth and detailed trebles
• High resolution and separation

Take 2 – Headfonia

From the first time I listened to the Prelude, I knew I was listening to something special. I can without exaggeration say I have listened to dozens and dozens of in-ear monitors and I can without hesitation say the Warbler Prelude impresses and outperforms a lot of these.

The Prelude is the kind of monitor that sounds good with all types of music even though it has a sound signature that is more to the neutral side. At the same time I can’t call it a fully balanced/linear and neutral monitor as the voices and treble part to my ears can be a little upfront, and bass a little bigger as what most people see as “neutral”.

The Warbler Prelude’s sound is very clear and clean with great tonality from top to bottom. The Prelude presents the music with great precision and speed, but by always keeping a very good separation. The sense of air the Prelude portrays is good and it’s the stunning in the mid-section. The upper mids and treble– depending on the source/music played – can sometimes sound more forward or airy though. The extension overall is very good but it at the same time isn’t the most extended or widest monitor in my collection either, but that’s perfectly fine. I do have monitors that give you a better “out of your head” feeling but that doesn’t mean the Prelude sounds concentrated. It doesn’t at all and like I said, separation and sense of “air” are really very good. The Warbler Prelude has an exemplary good right/left separation and balance, the depth the Prelude manages to get is impressive but some TOTL monitors do get better depth and especially a more impressive layering. Again, that’s ok as the Prelude excels in so many other ways.

The Prelude’s tonal signature is more to the neutral than it is to the warmer side and probably for a lot of people, has a lighter amount of body. It doesn’t have the thick and full bodied sound a lot of the competition is going for but Warbler is going for precision and tonality, and they achieve this wonderfully so.

The overall resolution is more than just good and it actually is better than several of my other monitors. The Prelude easily competes with my other multiple driver monitors and compared to several of them, it even kicks their ass. It’s that simple. The Prelude was my testing monitor at Canjam London, and that means a lot of its capabilities and performance.

Bass is tight and fast and it’s only minorly elevated body-wise. Bass has a good punch and impact but as said it body-wise still is light compared to a lot of the competitors. If you’re into big and bold bass, this isn’t the monitor for you. Bass here is clean, precise and will be punchy when called upon. Bass goes fairly deep and has good detail but it has its limits. The rumble down low isn’t as present as it is in say the Flamenco or Encore and the layering could be better. For bass, think: precision, speed and tightness.

The part on Sound continues on Page Three, after the CLICK