Confused - Need help locking in on a Grado sr225i as a first purchase

Hi, I am from India and I have been lurking the forums for quite sometime.

We don't get Grados sold locally here and it can be really expensive to import & my friend managed to get an sr60i recently.

I have tasted the Grado sound for the first time on my life - and I really loved what I heard.

After that, every headphone I have auditioned in the price range felt lacking.

This included my friend's AT AD500 & Sen HD 448. (both unamped)

There was this mysterious colour that it left me looking for in all the headphones I listened.

I had to keep listening to it to get more of it... to the point my friend suggested me that it was about time I got my own.

So yea... I am out to make my first big purchase for the sake of my love for music. :)

But here comes the disturbing part... I have been listening to my music on a stopgap IEM : a Sennheiser MM30i.

The soundstaging feels claustrophobic & the bass is over-powering. I disliked it at first, but after a couple of weeks my ears have started to like the punishment of the bass. They tire me quickly and give me a headache.

Today, I listened to my friend's Grado again and Mysteriously, the Grado-factor that I was so obsessed with was GONE!

I simply didn't feel the same way about the cans the way I did when I first heard them.

I tried "Uprising" by West one Music as a reference track among many others... I had started to give my IEMs more marks over the Grados. Did I damage my hearing or something? :S

Further research on comfy+bassy headphones got seduced to the Sony MBR XB700 & the Beyerdynamic DT770. They have made me confused again. I cannot demo them anywhere nearby either.

To add to my confusion, sr225i will need more investment in a cable convertor to hook on to my iPad.

I find sr60i to be comfortable... despite what others say. Although I have seen better in that department.

But the bowls of the sr225i look really hard, almost as if they would scrape my ears & would barely mold over my ears to give even basic sound isolation.

So... coming back to the question. I started off with sr60i & sr80i as my options. But, after looking at how some people say that sr225i is ACTUALLY the best among the prestige line, I am confused if the price premium is worth it.

I plan to get a Fiio L3 line out for a rechargeable Dual battery CmoyBB as an amp to drive them.

How much improvement can I expect? It would suck to have buyers remorse after all this.

Additional Info :

I use my iPad 2 for music & use the onboard audio codec on my pc.

I listen to most of the genres out there (except mainstream) mainly, OSTs, Orchestra/Choir, Post-rock, Trance, Progressive house, Rock, Metal... and a bit of techno & classical at times.

I will be using it mostly for music and a bit of movies/tvshows & gaming.
I have a history of slaying all my headphones... so maybe durability might also be a deciding factor. (esp the cables - hate it when one of the drivers stops working!)

I respect a deep punchy bass & a wide soundstage. I tend to dislike treble too, unless it doesn't pierce my ears.

Thanks for you input.

When I say Improvement:

I am Comparing it to a stock sr60i (unamped),

Subjectively, I would want my Sr225i (Amped with an 18v Cmoybb) to have:

1: An obviously deeper/thicker bass (30% more than sr60i)

2: Wider soundstaging (If s60i is 100 meters wide, 225i should sound like 150 mtrs)

3: 30% Louder detail (with no distortion/loss of clarity at max volumes)

4: Treble should not over power the mids or the lows

5: Should be more comfortable

I am basically confused because I am currently fascinated with the sound of closed a headphone - the buttery thump of the bass (Which I would expect from Beyer DT 770 or Sony MBR XB700 - again! I haven't heard these myself.)

I also plan to Vent (for bass) them and do something like a headphile c-pad mod + beyer's headband for comfort (and looks :)).

Something like this...

Quote:

Originally Posted by zazex 

I'm not in a position to speak about the modded version in the picture,

but with respect to the stock SR225i's vs. the 60i's -

 

bass is more refined, detailed, and present, not sure if you'd think it was 'obviously deeper and thicker'

the soundstage is similar throughout the entire Prestige line, though it improves incrementally as you move up,

 

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "Louder detail",

though the 225i's are more detailed and revealing than the 60i's.

This is probably the most noticeable difference between the two phones.

 

Look - there are plenty of folks who say the Grado Prestige Series treble is too much.

Others love the their sound, treble and all.

And that's the way it's been for a long time.

They're zippy and bright; dynamic, lively and exciting.

But they're certainly not 'flat" or neutral phones by any means. 

If they were, they wouldn't have the "Grado sound". 

 

The stock 60i's are generally more comfortable than the stock 225i's,

though I guess this isn't a big issue because you'll be modding them anyway,

And Grado also offers different, more comfortable cushions for the 225i's.

 

Now... the best way to describe a deep and thick bass is the kind of bass you get with high-end sony xplode car systems. It can be booming at times.

This track : Moonbeam - Disappearance - would need that deep and thick bass to really blossom. I wonder how the 225i will perform at such tracks. Even after vent mods.

By louder detail I mean, the can's ability to make the subtle details more noticeable even at high volumes rather than them getting lost. This is particularly important in Orchestra music (where many instruments get layered above the others) or genres like Ambient/Post-rock. I would give a couple of examples here...
In ALMEEVA - Echoes, right after 1:12 - the bass starts booming and I notice that the background strumming becomes harder to detect on cheaper headphones.

Or, in Disclouse - CUTE, right after 3:08 there is a faint sound of a horse (which often gets left out by some headphones) - How visible will such effects be on the sr225i.

I am not sure how much justice they might to my particularly large collection of music - which is quite varied as described before.

Sorry for so many links and using lossy youtube videos as references, but I had to give something quick.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dubstep Girl 

there is alot of differencce from the 60i to the 225i, the 225 are just  overall better, the 225 is more refined is just about every aspect.

 

the 325i vs the 225i, there is difference still, but in terms of just quality and improvement, they're about the same, thus, the 225i are very good at details and are revealing headphones.

The 325i is too pricey for me to be a consideration. I might just leave such avenues open for the future treatment of my Grado-upgraditis :)

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Focker 

I have owned Magnepan speakers for the past six or seven years, and I absolutely love their open, airy, transparency. I feel like there is nothing at all between me and the music. Oddly enough, that's what I felt when I listened to my first Grados (SR80is) a few weeks ago. The treble is definitely at the forefront, but I just can't get over how crisp the bass is, how delineated the instruments and vocals are, and just how the overall presentation is very organic. I didn't expect to find this in a  headphone period, let alone a $99 pair.

 

But anyway, I just wanted to support the OP in his "Grado experience", cause I had the exact same thing happen. Just like other speakers don't have that "Maggie magic", so far the other headphones I've listened to in the same price range aren't cutting it for me, either.

 

Maybe I am just confused between the fundamental difference of a Closed & an Open can. Closed ones ensure a certain colour and quality of the experience, and they do so by locking you out and controlling your world. The cool part about the open ones is that you feel its a bit away from you, almost as if its happening somewhere nearby. You don't feel trapped in a musical limbo, rather they blend the music to your surroundings. Sure it doesn't have a lot of that "thump" - but it was a different experience.

But it might do it at the cost of letting the subtle details slip out into the air even though it reproduced them.

I am still wondering what is it that made the Grados so different the first time I heard them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dubstep Girl 

just listened on the 325is, not very good. 

 

the LCD-2 on the other hand, very enjoyable. the K701 did good too.

 

 

the 225 will do ok, but not the best headphone for trance.

Thanks for the feedback. :) How did they do on the rest of the tracks? Can you tell me?

That discourages me a bit though. Since 325 is more brighter, 225 should perform roughly 5-10% better on this track.

I felt it was quite decent... when I had tried this on sr60i.

I am really leaning towards the Beyer DT 770 now. I might have to research on specific 32, 80, 250 & 600 ohm versions of those. :S

League of Grado Lovers, convert me!

Quote:

Originally Posted by zazex 

 

Reading from bottom to top -

 

 

You don't sound confused on that difference, I think you described it well.

 

Among other things, open phones generally eliminate "pistonic distortion"

which are a bane of closed phones - no matter how good.

 

 

It's one of the the things that made the Grado sound "so different"

from closed phones, but there are other things too -

the type of drivers, the type of enclosures and the way they're "tuned",

the quality of internal wiring, driver matching, and more.

 

The 225i's will definitely not put out the kind of bass you described

here as 'deep and thick'.

 

It's a very satisfying bass, it's punchy, it's detailed, -

but no way any of the Grados's will produce that 'basshead' type of bass.

(Nor is it the intent of the company to have its products do so.)

 

 

Details both subtle and apparent are reproduced very, very well

by the 225i, even at increased volumes.  In fact, detail and and 'air'

are two of the headphones' major assets.

 

 

BTW, loss of detail at higher volumes is often the result of an

amplifier that's clipping, rather than the drivers being overdriven.

In these cases, the phones are effectively being underdriven,

or at least underpowered.

 

 

I also like the 225i more than the 325is.

Very similar, but the high end on the 225i is less harsh (to my ears, anyway...)

 

So you mean the bass will try to be neutral... it won't pathetic by any chance... it will be there & it will be pure & rich if not impressive - not the highlight, is it? My objective is not to find the pair that Growls 2 cm away from your ears, but fairs well in most genres. I just don't want it to sound pathetic with that smooth/bassy kinda track.

Satisfying, Punchy and Detailed seem like promising keywords though. (I am sorry you have try so hard to describe & explain it to me - just because I can't go out to a shop and test them myself. Although, I *might* go to Seattle this summer for a Game Design exchange program - I wonder if I would want to wait so long to be in a hifi shop.)

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dubstep Girl 

the brightness was the biggest problem, the bass was kinda weak the whole way. if you thought it was ok though on the sr60, you should be fine with the 225.

 

the rs1 with flats would be really good with this though

 

the 770 don't have much bass and are neutral. the pro 80 version however is the odd one out. its a bass monster, one of the bassiest cans out there, recessed mids though.

Will the 18v CmoyBB help me with the Bass?

And just in case - if I wanna choose a DT770 Pro, will a 9v/18v CmoyBB be good enough to drive them? Can I expect the 80 Ohm version to run fine on other PMPs & regular PC audio chips just fine? What to expect from those cans if I use the sr60i as a reference?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Focker 

I'm not sure if this is of any help or not, but a couple months ago when I first started making plans for what to buy, I was really getting frustrated cause I just couldn't figure out what to get. But then I realized something...it seemed that most of the people I came across on here and on other sites didn't really just have one set of headphones and that's it. Most of them had two, three, even four or more pair, and they often times continued to buy/sell/trade as they went along. So instead of driving myself nuts trying to settle on something, I started trying less expensive cans from some of the companies I was most interested in. I also have a short list of more higher end cans that I want, and as the funds present themselves I plan to pull the trigger on some of those, as well. Whatever I don't care for, I'll just sell, and the difference between what I bought them for and what I sold them for will just be the price I pay for a "rental" period :)  I just sold a pair of Sennheiser 518s on my Amazon seller account since I thought the Grados were far more to my liking. I'll do the same with any other phones I decide come up short, and that will allow me to continue to have fun with this hobby AND listen to some good tunes along the way.

 

So if you end up pulling the trigger on headphones that ultimately don't satisfy your ears, no biggie...there's always someone else out there waiting for a good deal on a used pair, and they'll be happy to take them off your hands....err, head.

 

Unfortunately, I don't enjoy the luxury of selling them easily here in India. And people aren't so eager to buy second hand stuff when they are out to look for something in this price range, 200$s is 10000 INR, which is kind of a big deal. People aren't as enthusiastic about Cans like US/UK. (The low market demand causes Sony to not sell anything above MDR XB300 :S).

It would cost me an arm and a leg to ship it as well... (UPS was charging me 150$ to get a sr80i shipped to me :O).
 

And durability is another big consideration for me. It seems that Grados are known for how much punishment they can take. They look rugged and industrial. The stock cables should last a few years themselves (judging by the sr60i - 225i will have a way better one).

Given the modding potential - I could easily open them for a quick change of cables (if one of the sides stops working). And the amount of comfort/look mods out there.

I would want an investment like this to give some mileage and ATLEAST last me 2 years - given my history of accidentally slaying all my cheaper headphones so far.

Beyer 770 Pro looks made of plastic - and even thought people tout it last for as long as 5 years, I don't know how the cables will fair or how much I can repair/replace stuff & cables on my own - International warranty out of consideration due to shipping costs - better off buying new ones.  (Beyer does sell replacement pads, headbands and spares - wonder if they sell drivers shall I overdrive and blow them up :S)