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Grado Sig Speakers?

post #1 of 9
2/19/07 at 7:10am
Thread Starter 
I have been around this forum long enough to know these types of threads get old. But I have just been thinking that I would love to get a pair of speakers that have the 'grado' sound. are there any grado-ish speakers that are moderately priced? (500 or under)

some speakers that have been in the back of my mind are the AV123 XL-S. would those be fitting?
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post #2 of 9
2/19/07 at 10:48am
I don't have too much speaker experience, especially lately. But I've always likened the Klipsch house sound to Grados.
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post #3 of 9
2/19/07 at 12:35pm
Now that I think of it, I'd say my Epos ELS-3's sound fairly similar to my Grado SR-125's. They are both detailed, fast and lean more towards "bright" than "dark". Nice little speakers.
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post #4 of 9
2/19/07 at 2:54pm
This is completely unhelpful, but I read that John Grado listens to a pair of speakers made of an array of RS-1 drivers. Cool, huh?

As for a speaker, look at singledrivers. Headphones are singledrivers, too, and you'll get the same cohesiveness and timing. The enclosure you use really contributes to the sound, so that can be tuned to your liking.

The only catch is that you usually have to build your own cabinets. There are lots of plans, but if you don't like any of those or want to tune a speaker specifically along the Grado response curve, Madisound will plot a box for you. Their prices are cheap. Then, you can get a local cabinetmaker to chop MDF to spec. All told, you could get the cabinets designed and built between $50 and $200 plus drivers. You should be able to put together finished speakers between $200 and $500.

The other neat thing about these is that they're very efficient and can use those great sounding fleapower SET amps, that usually double as excellent headphone amps.
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post #5 of 9
2/20/07 at 1:44am
Thread Starter 
Thank you uncle erik, that is some really good information, and i think building my own speakers could be a fun task.

would i need any special tools to construct the boxes or could i just do it was a regular saw and power drill?
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post #6 of 9
2/22/07 at 2:30pm
well I am personally newer to can than to speakers, here are my suggestions

I personally own a pair of magnepan MMG's which are amazing and do have sort of the Grado revelatory high end and mid range sound that grados are known for, in fact they sound really great with my grado blue cart. However these speakers are power hungry and require at least 200 watts of clean low distortion power to sound good, because they are 4ohm Oh yeah and they need a sub for bass more or less. I would also recommend Monitor audio silver series, or if you could get them used the GS-10, these have a similar wide frequency extension to grados from 40 up to about 43Khz and are an 8ohm speaker so they are easier to drive. I would also recommend amphion, which might be had for about 500 used, they use a tweeter that starts at 1200hz and goes up to 20,000hz without a cross over much like headphones, they also are 8ohm and never drop below 7ohm, but are like an 89db efficaincy. triangle electrostatique speakers are also very good, they have very revelatory high end and rock solid imaging and have many mini monitors to choose from as descent prices, and they have the right in front row sort of sound that grados have, but many of these do also create a great sense of space like grados. But really all of these speakers appropriateness is dependent on the system you have to put it in. I hope that helps
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post #7 of 9
2/22/07 at 2:52pm
here you go.

http://www4.head-fi.com/forums/showt...+grado+speaker

but perhaps more attainable could be the Wharfedale Crystal 20s, which i got for 100 bucks on sale. Sound Gradoish to me, never felt the craving to up-grado from them since i got em, and other people seem to like em too.
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post #8 of 9
2/22/07 at 3:18pm
I guess it all depends on what each person likes about grados "sonic signature" if you you like the added subharmonics of of ultrasonic frequencies or believe that the higher Khz a driver can go and act like a true piston the better because then the audible frequencies a speaker produces won't be on the distorted edge of the pistonic perfomance, or you want a speaker that can produce those frequencies and not use a lot of crossovers, then those speakers will sound more like headphones and and more like grados to your ears. But if you like the clear mids of grados then there are other speakers, but really synergy between components is key, I have heard speakers that I love on SS amps and hated on tubes like B&W monitors.
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post #9 of 9
2/22/07 at 7:08pm
Totems

But totems are good..
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