Vinnie Rossi

About Vinnie Rossi

Vinnie Rossi is driven by a passion for designing audio components that bring music enthusiasts unmatched sonic realism, long-term listening satisfaction, and pride of ownership. We create timeless designs that transcend the ordinary with industry-leading innovation and exceptional quality.

After 17 years of honing his craft with numerous commercially successful and award-winning products, Vinnie Rossi introduces the BRAMA Collection, opening a new chapter for our brand as we follow our vision of offering the finest home audio products on the market.

Our products are proudly assembled by hand in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Industrial design that passes the test of time. 

In Italian, the word BRAMA means craving, or desire. The Brama Collection is the result of a collaborative effort whose purpose was to create a design of enduring beauty that would call out to passionate individuals. Vinnie Rossi knows what he wants, trusts in new ideas and understands the value of uncluttered design. There is no such thing as a straightforward creative process. Good ideas take time to emerge, and when questioning a decision, I would always fall back on this core principle: Every great design starts from within. 

Ultimately, my job as an industrial designer is to make intelligence visible. In the early stages of our creative process, we exchanged thoughts on products that we both found appealing to the eye in an effort to distill keywords out of these objects into potential design strategies. The conversation then centered on one specific word: timelessness.

Timelessness is not classic, nor modern or futuristic. A timeless design piece is positively unadorned and sheltered from passing trends, and this is precisely what we were looking for. As such, the Brama Collection is an attempt at redefining indulgence in the most elegant and enduring fashion.

Proportions are meticulously calibrated and each piece that comprises the chassis design is in a harmonious relation to another. Everything feels properly sized, balanced, and in its right place. The Brama Collection unifies rational lines to sensual curvatures. A curvature, as opposed to a simple radius, deals with reflections in a more sophisticated way that plays between light and surface with every corner of the device.

In terms of materials, they need to feel as premium as they appear. Every Brama chassis is machined out of solid, high-grade aluminum-6063 billets. This is the unquestionable choice for strength, resistance to corrosion, and fine surface quality. Each panel is finished with a micro-beading treatment to reveal the smoothest surface quality possible. It also acts as an excellent heat sink, a property we fully take advantage of with two unibody side panels, each perforated from top to bottom for hot air to channel upwards and outwards.

Precision laser engraving is used for logo and text. The parts involved in transitioning over to other materials, such as the feet and gauge bezels, are polished to reveal a mirror-like finish offering a visually appealing and dynamic design. We trust in an audience seeking refinement over some false sense of luxury, so shininess was applied with restraint. The voluntary absence of any unjustified flourishes is the expression of our take on modern luxury.

As for the user interface, we quickly agreed that analog is king. This is true for air-cooled Porsches, Swiss mechanical movements, or Braun’s 1965 TG 60 Tonbandgerät. Brama uses analog knobs and gauges as its primary interface. It is impossible to try to put into words the tactile satisfaction that comes from turning solid machined knobs attached to Swiss-made, precision-stepped rotary encoders. Physical gauge hands hovering over bespoke analog faces are also quite a sight. Much like the best watch dials, we aimed for the gauge faces to convey a delicate balance between necessity (information) and clarity (readability). This is also true in a dark room setting, as the gauges feature adjustable backlighting that is as subtle as the glow of a full moon in the night sky. It was essential for us to provide users with this level of intimate experience that focused on satisfying sensory feedback.

This is not to say we dispute the legitimacy of digital input. It can (and should) be implemented in a natural way, as demonstrated by the Brama Remote with its high-resolution LCD. This puts full control into the hand of the listener from the comfort of their chair and allows for Brama components to be uncluttered with additional buttons or series of manipulations. This is a celebration of the best of both worlds, where analog and digital unite to offer users a truly unique experience.  

In Italian, BRAMA also stands for longing. In many ways, this is how I personally feel about this product. Our mission was to create a piece of enduring beauty that would pass the test of time. Much more than just another high-end audio component, it is most of all, the result of a collaborative effort between passionate dreamers.

Voltaire once said, “the ear is the avenue to the heart.” And in this case, we couldn’t agree more!

Vinnie Rossi & Olivier Raymond Studio for Industrial Design