Grado iGi First Impressions

I currently own Etymotic ER-6is (L ch out) and some Shure SE310s (R cable cracked). In the past I've owned Jays q-Jays, Phonak PFEs, ER-4s, and some other in-ears. I also own some AKG K601s and some Alessandro MS-2is and love them both for different things. I've owned RS-1s and SR-80s on the full size side. I really like the Grado sound.

I do have a little mini3 amp and have had a Tomahawk and an RA-1 in the past. The mini3 is charging right now. So I'm listening to the Grado iGis. Unamped out of my iPod classic. The source material is all 320 kbps AACs.

I'm not terribly impressed with them so far.

I've been listening to Brahms Double Concerto with Julia Fischer and Daniel Muller-Schote on Pentatone. I've also been listening to Duke Ellington and John Coltrane. Both piano and large orchestra reproduction seems veiled. Think HD555. These phones are missing the clarity of the Etys/q-Jays/Shures. Chord separation on the Brahms isn't great. The cello reproduction sounds fine, slightly warm, but the solo violin sounds more distant than with the ER-6i/SE310s.

Low frequency reproduction is kind of insane! It's definitely more in amplitude than the ER-6i or the SE310s, almost sounding like hip hop phones. On Get By by Talib Kweli, I find it to be slightly muddy in the lower frequencies when it was not so on the others. This is confirmed by listening to A Little Max (Parfait) on Money Jungle with Duke Ellington, Max Roach, and Charles Mingus. Mingus' bass notes are not as crisp as they were on the ER-6is or the q-Jays. I think Roach's drums sound really good on these phones. The piano sounds "correct," in these tracks, very close to other phones.

The female soloist in "Der Holle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" on Mozart's Die Zauberflote by the Bavarian State Opera comes through clear, unveiled, and beautiful in tone and range.

Fit and finish: they look/feel kind of cheap to me. None of the tips really fit well; they all feel like they will fall out at any time and do not give much of a seal. Three-flange Ety tips (my preferred on all my phones) are the saving grace for fit on these. Time will tell if they can put up with my apparent mishandling of phones.

Anything you would like me to explore and report on, I'll do my best.

I might be picking up a pair of the S4s soon out of sheer curiosity. I guess Grado Sound to me is about a small soundstage, slightly rolled off highs, warm but accurate mids and quality but not great quantity in the low frequency. On further listen these seem boomy and veiled, dominated by the low frequencies.

I like my Soulive funky, but the lack of clarity and boominess of these IEMs is really off-putting. I listened to a couple of tracks (Aladdin and So Live!), but I didn't care for either of them on the iGis. I guess I could let them break/burn in, but the fit problem isn't going away (they just don't fit securely), so I'm getting rid of these myself.