Why do people like Grados so much? - Page 4

If you buy SR60 as your first phone, everything else will sound dull in comparison if that is all you have ever heard. If you are used to the Denon sound signature or even Sennheiser then Grado's will sound small and perhaps harsh.

For me Grado's are the ultimate for acoustic and Jazz, perfect for realistic timbres of unplugged instruments! I can see where the op is coming from in regards to rock music, electric guitar sounds gritty and textured but also fatiguing with Grado's IMO.  But I also think the denons are a no go with rock too.. because of the reassessed mids. Senns are the way forward with rock, great mids and low fatigue.  

I love my Grado's, can't imagine listenin to Coltrane without em!       

I dont know if this has been covered already, but Grados were heavily recommended some years ago for metal. Today it has some competition I think. Why it was recommended was because it gets the guitar sound right. Electric guitars sound fantastic on Grados!

About rest of the sound... Bass lacks oomph and treble spike may be bit piercing, but it varies slightly from model to model, and especially between different earpads! You can tune Grados sound like mad with them! For example taped bowls fix the low end weight problem and mellow the spike in the treble, best sound SR serie can offer IMHO. Try it out if you can. Stock HF2 is actually very smooth sounding and bass does have some weight behind it.

I still recommend for newcomers on budget to check out Grados. Mid and higher end have much better choices. SA5000 and Hifiman HE-5 are pretty much only headphones I listen nowadays for example, with random spins with HF2 here and there. I dont remember when I listened SR225 last time.

Comfort depends on ears. Plus you have to bend the headband to fit your ears. This is even mentioned in some paper that comes with grados. They are meant to only rest on your ears, not squeeze them.

Tried a set or SR-80i with some metal...they made my Ultrasones sound dull by comparison.  No thanks.  All the "added energy" did was make everything seem artificial - sounded like a decent set of headphones that someone had EQ'd to hell.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DemonicLemming 

Tried a set or SR-80i with some metal...they made my Ultrasones sound dull by comparison.  No thanks.  All the "added energy" did was make everything seem artificial - sounded like a decent set of headphones that someone had EQ'd to hell.

You have a set of hfi-780's and you found grado's to be too coloured... Wow, the hfi-780's are just as coloured as the grado's if not more.

Don't get me wrong, laid back spacey presentation is great, but the more I listen, the more the slight differences begin to set the phones I have apart wildly. I could go on and on about why many of the ones I have heard would be great for rock... It is hard, maybe not possible, to crown a single brand as the headphone for "blank"... I certainly love my grados, and am not sure why people describe them as a closed in sound when they seem to stage, for me, wider than I was generally used to.

I listen to Beyers a lot too. The DT770pro/80s with earpads from the 880/990s, when broken in, these sound just great. I have an older set of 990s that I configured the same way, in fact, I replaced the drivers with extra pro/80 drivers I had, since the guy that sent me these sent me membrains with too much hair on them to remove without destroying them. It was just terrible, but I wanted to salvage the shells, and since they were basically an open design of the pro/80 770s, I installed an extra set of 80ohm beyer drivers... These are almost as open as Grados, but not nearly as spacious, but they have a neutral balance to them that the 770s are missing ever so slightly. They stage almost like my 770s with just a more open sound. It was a nice experiment. I have had synergy with a certain low power tube amp and Shure 440s. I am not sure why, but this combination blows my mind, but it only works with this certain little amp, any other source, other amps, preamps, the Grace901, the Shures just sound annoying, but with one amp I have, they sound magical, and this is rock to IDM to psych, to prog, to jazz, to classical.

Everyone seems to like the DT880s, but they sound more closed in than my haked 990s, and certainly my Grados. The timbre may be fairly accurate, but there is an in your head feeling that never goes away.

Grados are FAST! the membrain is so thin it is amazing they are even assembled the way they are. I think the forward sounding presentation is the shear speed of the drivers. Amped right, it is crazy how fast they are, so naturally details will emerge and I can see why metal, with digital distortion and overdrive, would end up shredding ears.

I can only listen to some metal with them... Metal with a more psych theme. Your classic idea of shredding metal just probably just throws too much at you at once. A slightly more laid back, but still nimble headphone does make sense, like a sennheiser, I know their drivers are speed deamons too, just their design places a bit more of the HF energy towards the back instead of way up front. For a laid back headphone, it might take metal to wake them up. I should try it with my senns. I used mine for IDM because of how accurate they could produce electronic synthed sounds. Grados are getting better at it though.

m50s seem to work really well most of the time, but they don't stand out enough for me to use them much. A shame.

Still, if you have sr60s or sr80s, esp. the 80s, get to modding. You can take the 80s and bring them close to the higher end models with a relative few tweaks. It might even be easier than the old HD555>HD595 or better mods. Grados are made for tooling around and tayloring your sound. Guitar guys are obsessed with TONE, and I think grado lovers have a similar obsession. The tone is what pulls us in.

I love how music my Grados sound. They may not be the most neutral headphone but I always have fun listening to music with them. I vented the drivers, removed the inside grill cloth and removed the model number cap on my Sr225i and the sound only got thicker, deeper and more spacious. I'm a guitarist and tone freak when it comes to my amp settings, I hate grainy upper mid spikes and any bit of harshness. I've heard people complain about the harsh upper mid spike on most Grado cans but to me the Sr225i (burned in of course, it was harsh at first) sounds great. That slight peak in the eq at the mid to treble boundary adds the perfect amount of "honey" and warmth to music. Another point worth mentioning is the process of getting used to a sound signature. I'm sure if I had a pair of Senns and went back and forth between them the Grados would come off as very fatiguing, but I must be used to them. I actually a/bed my Sr225i with my friends Rs2i and I was seriously dissapointed. It didn't sound terrible but it was so flat and lacking any detail. Bass was nonexistent and the treble was like an ice pick reaching into the depths of my inner ear. Maybe it wasn't burnt in enough? Who knows.

Anyone who says Grados don't have enough bass hasn't vented the drivers, seriously it thickens and deepens the bass wonderfully.

Not colored, just way too "over-bloomed" in the highs.  Grados are just shrill without any refinement.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackmccabe 

You have a set of hfi-780's and you found grado's to be too coloured... Wow, the hfi-780's are just as coloured as the grado's if not more.

I've always thought that matching certain genres with certain headphone brands is such a silly thing... like matching the Grados with rock music. which rock music are we talking about? which guitar player? which guitar? which fuzz pedal? which producer? etc... the number of soundings are simply countless.

btw, I'm listening to the latest Kangding Ray (electronic/ambient) on my SR125 at the moment, and I'm having an orgasm from the tight beat patterns, background ambience, carefully placed effects in the soundstage and other layers. and it's amazing how balanced the result is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derp 

I love how music my Grados sound. They may not be the most neutral headphone but I always have fun listening to music with them. I vented the drivers, removed the inside grill cloth and removed the model number cap on my Sr225i and the sound only got thicker, deeper and more spacious. I'm a guitarist and tone freak when it comes to my amp settings, I hate grainy upper mid spikes and any bit of harshness. I've heard people complain about the harsh upper mid spike on most Grado cans but to me the Sr225i (burned in of course, it was harsh at first) sounds great. That slight peak in the eq at the mid to treble boundary adds the perfect amount of "honey" and warmth to music. Another point worth mentioning is the process of getting used to a sound signature. I'm sure if I had a pair of Senns and went back and forth between them the Grados would come off as very fatiguing, but I must be used to them. I actually a/bed my Sr225i with my friends Rs2i and I was seriously dissapointed. It didn't sound terrible but it was so flat and lacking any detail. Bass was nonexistent and the treble was like an ice pick reaching into the depths of my inner ear. Maybe it wasn't burnt in enough? Who knows.

 

Anyone who says Grados don't have enough bass hasn't vented the drivers, seriously it thickens and deepens the bass wonderfully.

Inside grill cloth?

I've only added Dynamat Xtreme to the back of my SR325is' drivers and got similar results minus the thickening of the bass.  I love these headphones with almost anything except jazz and classical, where I prefer A2000X or my dampened K701.

Dat honey sweetness once SR325 has warmed up a bit. 

Why? Because the Grado HF-2s are freaking AMAZING!

I remember my first pair of Grados ... SR-125s, back in 2001 I think. People warned of the comfort problems then too, death to the ears. At the time, I just thought they were being a bunch of babies. But then the same thing happened to me, extreme discomfort! Ears bleeding! Not literally, but definitely uncomfortable. Once the bowls softened up after a week, everything was fine and I could wear them for hours without a problem. And the sound? Unlike you, I was in love.

Since then, I've also owned a pair of SR-80, SR-225, RS-1 buttonless, and for about a week now, HF-2. I've also listened briefly to a pair of RS-2 and RS-1 w/button. I love the classic RS-1s too.

My love for Grados doesn't have anything to do with metal as I don't listen to much. It's the up-front presentation and the way they handle acoustic instruments. I've always loved listening to small-combo jazz with Grados. Though, I could say the same thing for Sennheisers too. I don't know. Grados are cans you either love or hate. 

Sorry for my blabbering :)

Yep the inside white cloth. I just sliced the edges off very carefully with an x-acto knife and removed it, being especially careful so no small pieces of cloth would fall into the drivers. The sound is even more lively and feels a tiny bit more open. The only downside is now dust is a bit easier to get into the cans and create buzzing, but its easy enough to blow it out and I'm very careful anyways.

I see what you mean, but the stuff is black in my headphones.