Weird distortions coming from the PS1000

I spent no more than 10 seconds with winks PS1000, and then another 5 seconds on his GS1000 (maybe not even 5 seconds).  First thing I notice was the bumped up upper bass (I cant even call it mid bass) and bumped up lower treble.  Second thing I noticed was that these drivers were at worst no quicker than HD650/K701 drivers at best almost as quick as D7000 drivers.  The bumped up lower treble did nothing to add "air" because the drivers were too slow and worse than that skewed the upper midrange.  Same thing with the upper bass, the bumped up upper bass was probably an attempt to make the bass sound tighter...but once again those drivers were too slow to pull off that effect and the midrange suffered also - one note bass.  This thing sounded worse than the D7000 in terms of a V shaped EQ curve.

There was no bass punch so to speak of, that's in the vicinity of midbass, which unfortunately was completely masked by the bumped upper bass, upper bass so close to the midrange that it took the midrange with it - leading to an unnatural midrange.  It sounded exactly like a 80s boom box with the infamous V eg curve - where the EQ started at 100hz and ended at 10khz.  Yes the whole experience was a distortion to the studios intent IMHO.

And I could not discern appreciable differences between the PS and GS for the few seconds it took for me to dislike both these cans.  I'm sure in my leisure I could pick out a lot of differences...but I had no such intent or desire at the time or ever will.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SP Wild 

I spent no more than 10 seconds with winks PS1000, and then another 5 seconds on his GS1000 (maybe not even 5 seconds).
 

10 seconds of listening time is really not enough time to reach any conclusions about a headphone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elephas 

10 seconds of listening time is really not enough time to reach any conclusions about a headphone.

Enough to know I won't like them...but I am being honest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMahler 

Ok, so I'm assuming many people are going to jump in and say that either my amp is bad, my source is bad or my headphones are defective.  But let me tell you:

 

I've had the fortune of auditioning 2 pairs on 2 entirely different systems and I found the distortions to be there both times.

 

Did you use the same recording?

I never heard a distortion that was not in the recording. Allegedly, a few of the early production pairs went bad after a few hours of use and were replaced by Grado.

Was the second pair you heard in a store too? If not, what did the owner say about your findings?

My PS1000's, which I just received last week, had a distortion (a slight hum) in the left channel only from about 50-100Hz.  After swictching amps it was still the same exact case. I used my good ol' SR80's on the same equipment with the same test track and the distortion was not present.

Its hard to tell if the distortion I am hearing is the same that others report. I don't think what I am hearing is a design flaw since the right channel works flawlessly.

I contacted Grado and they said they would isolate and fix the problem. I shipped my headphones back to them today.

I don't want to take away from these headphones. During some tracks the distortion was difficult to notice and it was hard to send them back because I enjoyed them so much. I just hope for future buyers' sake that this is a fairly rare problem

Edit: Grado received my ps1000's for service on Monday. I had them back in my hands by Thursday with the problem fixed. Excellent customer service - likely one of the best in the industry. I can't begin to describe how much I missed these.