Hi Guys,
I reread my review and I realized I did leave out some things from my notes, namely the Alessandro stuff. I'll include it in the write-up later tonight but in short, George Alessandro is a friend and he had a little business in the works and wanted to include some headphones that could be offered to the pro market. He asked John if Grado could make these for him. After discussing the sound he wanted (more analytical, akin to HP-1000's) John went out to make them. Interestingly, they are not made "from" a given model. That is, though the MS-Pro's share a body with the RS-1's, that is about it. They are built from the ground up as something different and not just a tweaked RS-1. Same for the MS-2's and MS-1's. So what model are the MS-1's made after? Same answer, no phone. They are a unique product that simply resembles the lower Prestige models. What is specifically different between the Alessandro and Grado models? Well besides the sound...John wouldn't reveal. It is an Alessandro product, same as the PS-1 deal and he feels it would not be prudent to reveal the differences.
As for the tiny model disc that Grado uses but that are absent from the Alessandro and PS-1's, they make no difference to the sound. The reason they are absent is because of cost. Grado uses them as model distinguishers, since the Alessandro phones and the PS-1's don't really require them, it was a way to lower build time and cost. Those little discs are difficult enough to produce and take time to put on each phone.
As for what is built in house, everything save for the cables which comes from overseas and the wood from New Hampshire. All the plastic cups are in house, the driveres, metal work, plastic work, headbands, all in house.
I didn't "polish" the writeup, I figured I could do a decent job with a first run-through and then work from there afterwords with the feedback from the members. I'll be sure to include the things I missed of course.
The one thing I wanted to emphasize is that I think John is a great man who thinks of his family first, then the music, then the products. Regarding production, if he can't get that Grado sound, he won't release a product. He has standards and is not willing to compromise. That means integrity which is sadly lacking today.
As for the "fun" sound of Grados, though John has that as a main attraction, he of course lists transparency, resolution, dynamics etc etc as other main features of the Grado sound. A full description of the sound can be found on his website.
Perhaps as I have more time (I have some time off at the end of August) I can elaborate on this document and kinda do an all encompassing Grado writeup which includes the complete product lines and an indepth history (from what I can take from the site and review articles). We could make this a collaborative effort and provide this as an archetype for other companies perhaps? Anyway, musings on my part.
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