Yes, it cheap when you look outside and inside of the box. But consider this, the were only few manufacturers make headphones and design specific headphone amps for them back in the days. It might be a little bit pricey when you are raising the argument on the components Grado uses, but think about this, there are bunch of people who were or are trying to replicate RA1's sound using exactly the same components, and what did they get? They got nothing alike RA1 and even worse than RA1.
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