What happened to Grado's reputation? - Page 36

I absolutely love Grado.  I've never understood why this site has shifted away from them.  When I started here two years ago, Grados were universally praised.  I'm a guy who only listens to rock and electronic music (industrial, too) so that may be why I love Grado. If they had better build quality, they'd be ace.  But I see them a lot (even in public) because their design is so "in style" right now.

Yeah man, those hipsters mang.

I thought Grado was doing all right...with the latest entry PS500 getting very good reviews and all. Just like someone said, if you can get over the build quality and comfort issues, they are fantastic.

Personally, I love the sound and the looks of the Grados. I can see how many people can think the build quality is sub-par. I made some tweaks with the pads to improve comfort and now they are very comfortable for prolonged use. I've tried sr60, sr225 and sr325...and I'm already planning my upgrade:  HF-2 / PS500 / RS1.

Cheers!

 More Grado irony - how many times do you see someone with a generic avatar on here select the

 PS1000 as their avatar of choice? Many, many times - the sight of those big spongy cups and metal

 cups.

 All well and good and yet what chance would let's say the PS1000 have of making a recent

 'Top #10 favorite headphones at any price' list on Head-Fi according to general vote?

 I'd say Buckley's and none, I'd expect to see the V-Moda M80 make a surge to bump it out of

 10th position. Fascinating. So we have a headphone that many choose to select as their

 Head-Fi avatar, that happens to be universally ignored, that raises very little discussion and interest and

 yet some with the PS1000 avatar are happy to go the extra step by disregarding or criticizing a headphone

 they may have never even heard for themselves in the first place..

 Hmmmm...funny times 

The beauty of Grados is their beautiful open sound and low volume performance. I have listened to my fair share of flagships from other manufacturers but i would still pick the RS1 over the rest for low volume listening in the night and listening to live music. I agree that at higher volumes, the RS1 easily looses.  I guess in the current technical world, frequency response, distortion and efficiency matter more than simple pleasure of listening to music. That is probably why i think many people consider Grado to have lost their competitve edge.

The ironic thing is that people complain about them not evolving, but if they were to change their business model or styling, everyone would complain that they were selling out.  At this point, it might be impossible for them to win from a marketing standpoint.

Quote:

Originally Posted by forsberg 

Well, how many new headphones has Grado come out with in recent years? All other headphone companies are evolving except for them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by forsberg 

Well, how many new headphones has Grado come out with in recent years? All other headphone companies are evolving except for them.

 Evolution and therefore 'progress' in this game is sometimes just a subjective view - I won't go into discussing

 a few fellow competitor models but many of these new models from Grado's competition still fail to meet some

 hugely crucial elements - namely instrument tonality with piano and guitar.

 Ask any professional musician to take a spin with a Grado and many other headphones at the same

 price point and then ask them:-

 'Which actually reproduces that guitar solo or piano medley accurately and authentically?'

 You'll be surprised - many pick the Grado time and time again, especially the guitar pro's.

Grado went downhill around after the GS1000 disappointed everyone. They were THE company of headfi for a while.

they released HF-2s which were a disaster of lazy construction and bad PR. they release a bunch of "-i" models which just confuse people. then they tried to get into the ipod market with a bunch of IEMs and portables that no one really cared about. then there is the flagship PS1000 which was more of the same, at a time when companies are releasing HD800, LCD-2, Ultrasone... improving the form of headphones, doing new research for new technology. and here is a boring old GS-1000 with metal. PS500 the consensus seems to be it is not worth it if you can spend a little more for better.

IMO it is a great study for a company having no vision and running out of ideas. The love this site used to have for Grado, I am now seeing it has changed over to Audeze

Quote:

Originally Posted by forsberg 

Well, how many new headphones has Grado come out with in recent years? All other headphone companies are evolving except for them.

Evolving into what? Ripoff artists who put out overpriced crap that sounds no better (and mostly worse) than stuff from the 90's??

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndrewG 

Grado went downhill around after the GS1000 disappointed everyone. 

Everyone? Speak for yourself.

 I think this whole thread is fundamentally about 'tried and true, don't fix it' philosophy versus the new school

 who will buy anything that breaks new technological ground, whether it sounds any good does not seem to be a

 major criteria - technology first, sound quality second.

Grado is my Valentine.

ahhhh how cute

Aside from (at least by their own claim) revamping their entire product line (at least the Prestige series got re-touched), the RS-2, the PS1000, the GS1000, the PS500, the iGrado, the HF series, and various in-ears...no they haven't released anything new. That said, releasing a stream of new products does not progress make. Some of the best headphones (as recognized by the community) are quite dated - the popular picks for such examples include the Grado HP1000 and RS1, a few Sony pairs, and the Beyerdynamic DT48. Just because something wasn't released last week doesn't mean it's bad. And, this thread is making me want to give Grado another shot. 
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by forsberg 

Well, how many new headphones has Grado come out with in recent years? All other headphone companies are evolving except for them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jiggawhat 

Yeah, that's a good point. Grado should be moving forward. I still don't understand why so many people use the Sony MDR V6, it's old as hell, I would think there would be better monitoring headphone available in the 21st century, the age of technology.