Grado Modification Overview

This Wiki page will provide links and other pertinent info for all the Grado/Alessandro mods discussed in the SR60-Mod page. The Grado/Alessandro prestige series headphones are open, entry to mid-level headphones popular especially for Rock music, but also for genres such as jazz. They are known for their sparkle and lifelike highs, but are often noted as lacking in bass. This is where modification comes in.

Most popular mods for the Grado/Alessandro headphones (links will be added as other wiki pages are created)

Basic Mods:

"Quarter Mod" of the C-Cush pads and discussion of alternate headphone pads: http://www.head-fi.org/wiki/grado-pad-choices-and-mods

Silk Veil Removal

Bowls vs. Comfies vs. Flats vs. Gs1000 pads

Mods which require opening the cups:

These modifications involve removing the drivers from their cups. The process is fairly simple and easily reversible because the only glue holding the front and pack half of the cups together is hotglue. A tutorial on opening the cups is found here: http://www.head-fi.org/wiki/how-to-open-your-grado-headphones

"Hole Punch" mod - Generally only suggested if you have plastic cups and you are looking for more low end response. You should punch holes one at a time. 

If you wish to reverse the hole punch mods, Muslin is a good cloth of choice to cover up the holes. It is much easier to poke holes than cover them up so take your time and make sure you want to punch the holes. 

Blu-tack mod/Dynamat/felt - A small pea sized amount of dynamat on the back of the drivers, avoiding covering the vent holes is the suggested amount of dynamat to use. Dynamat is typically the preferred material.

Replace/Remove grille & Button - You can replace the grille and button with a more open mesh or craft felt, or simply leave it off. The goal is to improve air flow to the driver. 

Re-cable - Some members claim to see improvement with nicer cables, especially silver. 

Mods pertaining to alternative cup materials:

Basic wooden cups

Slip-ons - Allow you to replace the outer plastic shell without recabling the headphones. The easiest shell mod.

Full shells - requires partial liberation of the driver from its plastic housing. The driver fits in a full shell and the cable must be routed through a hole and soldered on.

Benefits of cup shape on acoustics

Generally more massive is known to give a bigger bass presence.

Benefits of wood type on acoustics

Other cup materials

Aluminum

Carbon Fiber

"Liberations" of the driver:

Partial - Removing the driver from the inner and outer plastic shells

Full - removing the driver from the inner and outer plastic shells along with removing the plastic wave guide that covers the front of the drivers.

Grado Headphones Overview

The Grado series headphones are very similar in many respects. All use a similar design and the driver sizes are all the same. The drivers actually look identical in some cases, but small differences set the various models apart. Here is a frequency response graph of the 4 plastic-body prestige headphones:

It's clear they are all related, but not exactly the same.

Differences (Subject to Revision):

• New "i" classification: The new 'i" Grado's are similar to their predecessors. of notable difference, the sound-chamber is larger in its outer diameter, and the cup has a "mushroom" look to it. The SR-80 used to come with Bowl pads, as used on higher models, but the new SR-80i uses the same C-cush "comfies" as the SR-60 & SR-60i. Also, It has been discussed that the soldering pads on the drivers of the SR-60i's might be less prone to coming detached while doing re-cables as the SR-60's.
• SR-60/i: C-Cush Comfie pads, 3.5mm plug
• SR-80: Bowl pads, 3.5mm plug
• SR-80i: C-Cush Comfie pads, 3.5mm plug
• SR-125i: C-Cush Comfie pads, UHPLC (Ultra-high purity, long crystal) copper voice coil wire, 8 conductor cable
• SR-225i: Bowl pads, UHPLC (Ultra-high purity, long crystal) copper voice coil wire, 8 conductor cable, Metal mesh rear-screen, drivers matched to .05db as opposed to .1db, drivers "de-stressed". Some believe the SR-225i drivers are the same as the drivers used in the Reference series RS-1, but this has never been confirmed