Brian Gavin Signature Hearts and Arrows Diamonds Review

When it comes to buying diamonds, CUT is always King. This is because cut quality is the determining factor of a diamond’s beauty and sparkle.

Think about it.

Would you rather buy a diamond that appears lively and brilliant or a diamond that appears lifeless and dull looking? I’m sure the answer is pretty obvious.

In the industry, the “Brian Gavin Signature” series has a reputation to be the best performing diamonds one can ever find in terms of optics. However, if you are like many others who wonder whether Brian Gavin’s signature diamonds are truly well cut and worth the premium, you are at the right place.

In this indepth review of Brian Gavin’s signature round diamonds, we will perform an indepth analysis of random stone selections and see how they fare under scrutiny.

What Makes a Brian Gavin Signature Round Hearts and Arrows Diamond?

The optical performance and light return of a diamond is fundamentally determined by its proportions. However, the problem with the majority of diamonds in the market is that they are cut to retain carat weight and to maximize profits for the dealers.

Unlike other cutters, Brian Gavin takes on a different philosophy by cutting diamonds for maximum visual performance. His degree of craftsmanship is carefully controlled and his diamonds cut to exacting standards to achieve the best balance of sparkle and fire.

The 2nd most critical aspect of Brian Gavin’s round H&A diamonds is the crisp optical symmetry displayed in every single stone. This goes way beyond the “excellent” or “ideal” symmetry ratings performed by gemological labs like the AGS or GIA.

In order for a diamond to make the grade to become a BGD signature, it has to exhibit a well-defined set of hearts and arrows patterning which is created by precisely aligned facets and rigid indexing.

When diamonds are well cut, you should expect to see something like this:

If you are interested to learn more about H&A, read this reference section.

At this point, I want to highlight that many retailers claim to offer “hearts and arrows” diamonds when they actually aren’t. Have you ever walked into a jewelry store where the sales staff claims to be selling “high quality” H&A diamonds and you are given a scope to examine the diamond only to see something like this?

It should come as no surprise because the majority of diamonds in the market aren’t well cut. And once you review tangible data in detail, you will see through the marketing fluff that sellers use in their sales pitch.

Just to be clear, none of the examples above would pass my standards to be purchase-worthy nor would they make the cut (pun intended) for Brian Gavin’s diamonds. With that said, let’s take a look at some random diamonds selected from the signature inventory…

Review of 3 Randomly Selected Brian Gavin Signature Round Diamonds

On each listing page, BrianGavinDiamonds.com provides a convenient layout of videos, images and other relevant scope data. In a recent website update, they even included an eyeclean video to simulate real life viewing. For online shoppers, this is a particularly handy tool to verify eye-cleanliness.

In order to conduct our review on Brian Gavin’s signature rounds, we randomly selected 3 diamonds across various sizes, color and clarity ratings with different budget ranges. The following data are extracted from the respective listing pages for your convenience.

#1 – 0.924 D VS2 HEARTS AND ARROWS ROUND – $8,494 by wire

#2 – 2.035 I VS1 HEARTS AND ARROWS ROUND – $24,510 by wire

#3 – 0.593 J VS2 HEARTS AND ARROWS ROUND – $1,528 by wire

To verify the data and to interact with the videos for yourself, I strongly encourage you to visit the listing pages via the links above or images below.

Face Up View of the Diamonds in Neutral Lighting

The face up views of the diamonds give a good idea of how the diamond looks like under magnification in normal fluorescent lighting (office). Video views of the individual diamonds depicting its brilliance and sparkle in different lighting conditions are also available.

ASET – AGS Diamond Light Performance Analysis

The ASET is a reflector tool that can help you analyze how a diamond interacts with light and will give you a pretty accurate idea of the diamond’s optical performance. Here’s a quick explanation of what the different colors represent:

• Red: intense light return – red is generally what you want to see.
• Blue: contrast – important for contrast and scintillation. Blue areas should be as symmetrical as possible.
• Green: less intense light return – keep green areas minimal.
• Black: light leakage – keep black areas minimal.

Here at Beyond4cs.com, we had compiled our own ASET reference charts you can use to quickly make your own comparisons against. In fact, one of the ASET examples we listed in the “best” range actually came from a Brian Gavin signature diamond. Given the strict standards that we set for buying diamonds ourselves and writing content, that speaks volumes.

Idealscope – Light Return And Optical Symmetry (Arrows) Analysis

The Idealscope image reveals how a diamond returns light to the user’s eyes and can be used to analyse the optical precision of the diamond (arrows patterning). Here’s a quick explanation of what the different colors represent:

• Red: indicates light return.
• Black: contrast – important for pattern & scintillation. Black areas should be symmetrical.
• White: light leakage – keep white areas minimal.

Determining the light performance of a diamond via the idealscope is as simple as comparing it against the chart here. From the above ideal scope images, all 3 diamonds exhibit extremely strong light return properties.

I also want to bring your attention to examining the black arrows as they reveal the craftsmanship of the cutter. Ideally, we want to look out for evenly sized arrows that are spaced symmetrically. Likewise, the small dark triangles between the arrow heads should also be evenly sized and spaced out in order to create good scintillation properties.

Again, all 3 diamonds from Brian Gavin that we reviewed pass the Idealscope analysis with flying colors and are first class.

Brian Gavin runs an extremely tight operation where strict quality control is enforced. As you can see, they don’t make any empty claims but substantiate their signature diamonds with in-depth technical data. If you are looking for the best of the best, BrianGavinDiamonds.com is a place you definitely need to check out.

Hearts Image – Optical Precision And Indexing Analysis

Whether you are a first timer or a seasoned expert when it comes to buying diamonds, you will need to rely on scope images when analyzing super ideal cut diamonds. This is because the hearts patterning only shows up when viewed from the diamond’s pavilion using the H&A scope.

And when it comes to optical cut precision, the hearts patterning is the most telling data to judge the craftsmanship and skill of the cutter. If any one of the 57 facets on the diamond is slightly misshaped or positioned with the slightest mistake, the errors will show up with a compounded effect here.

When assessing the hearts patterning image, the most important thing to note is the presence of a crisp and clean pattern with consistent symmetry. This means all 8 hearts should be the same size as each other, the V-shaped patterns should be distinct and not be merging. Lastly, the gap between each heart and V should be identical throughout.

Looking at the patterns formed for all 3 diamonds, you will probably come to the same conclusion that I have. They are all extremely well formed and symmetrical which indicates the high level of precision the diamonds were cut to.

Conclusion of Our Brian Gavin Signature Hearts And Arrows Review

Having established himself as one of the pioneers in high performance stones, Brian Gavin’s signature round diamonds speak for themselves and measures up to the reputation synchronous of this living legend.

As you can see from the diamonds that were picked randomly from Brian Gavin’s signature hearts and arrows inventory, the cut quality is consistently top notch. And that’s what I love about them because they are the real deal!

With the tangible data and tools to help you with your analysis, it makes it really easy to find a diamond that’s truly well cut for light performance and optical precision.

Whether you are a first time diamond buyer or someone who had experience in buying diamond jewelry, Brian Gavin Diamonds is the go-to place for the highest quality. I highly recommend you check them out!

Every single Brian Gavin Diamond is cut to exacting standards for the best optical performance and achieve the highly coveted AGS 000 for light performance. If you are looking for a stress-free shopping experience for a truly high quality diamond ring, look no further beyond Brian Gavin.

 

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