[Phlosopher]

Hi,
I'm new to this board...I just purchased a Grado RA-1 amp and RS1's.....I was curious how portable these are.....Can I haul them everywhere I go and expect them to hold up? Or should I buy a pair of cheaper Grados for the road? I don't have enough money to replace them every year, and my suspicion is that I should buy some SR60s and use the RA-1 with them....But, what do you all think?

Additionally, I was wondering if anyone knows where the amp will drain battery power if turned on but with the volume all the way down.

 

[mbriant]

I'd be a little concerned about them getting lost, stolen, dropped, scratched, soiled and even mildly fingerprinted.

I think I'd get a second set of Grados for the road and keep the woodies safe at home.

 

[joelongwood]

Personally, I wouldn't haul 'em anywhere, let alone everywhere. I think the 'phones are sturdy enough, but they do retail for $700 and can get beat up a bit........nicks and scratches in that beautiful mahogany. Maybe if you had a hard travel case it would be safer. I would get a less expensive pair of Grados for your purposes.
As far as the RA-1 is concerned, I believe it is draining battery power as long as it's turned on, but not as much if you were powering headphones. Left on, eventually the batteries will drain completely (I think). Hopefully someone here will have a more definitive answer.
Hope this helps.

 

[jude]

Click on the following link: Pelican Cases

Examples of a Pelican case holding my SR-325's (sold them some time after these pics were taken) can be seen at this link:

Pelican case holding Grado SR-325's

I used this same Pelican case to carry my Sennheiser HD-600's around before I received the second pair. My opinion is that if you want to carry them around, go ahead -- it's nice to have the sound of your favorite headphones with you everywhere you go. Places I wouldn't recommend taking your headphones, even in a Pelican case:

-- The beach (the Pelican case should protect it just fine until you open the case -- I believe they're waterproof to a depth of 30 feet and virtually crush proof).

-- Any place with a lot of dust and debris (like a construction site) -- again, the Pelican case should protect what's in it just fine until you open it.

-- Areas with high crime rates -- Pelican can't help you too much on this one.

-- Places where there'll be a lot of young, curious children -- kids can be more devastating than a shot by a Howitzer.

-- Anywhere where you'll have to leave them in a car under the summer sun.

-- Common sense should be able to come up with all sorts of other places you shouldn't take them.

 

[SumB]

I use a Pelican 1200 to store mine. Still you won't catch me dead with it outside. The 60's or 80's would be more appropriate, plus the ugliness is a great theft deterent.

 

[KR...]

I wouldn't dare carry around over $1000 in headphones and amp, much less ones which are made of mahogany.

That Grado amp is really made for home players, I know that's it's small and runs on batteries, but don't let that fool you, portables do not have enough power to run it correctly, IMHO.

 

[jude]

Quote:

Originally posted by KR... I would dare carry around over $1000 in headphones and amp, much less ones which are made of mahogany.

LOL! The thumbs down!

I'd carry 'em though (except for in those situations I described above). The JudeMan needs his sound.

 

[grrr223]

I understand the desire to protect your babies, but does anyone else think these pelican cases are overkill? Do you plan on going scuba diving with them? Are there any maybe less expensive alternatives? Do the HD600s come with any sort of case? I just bought a pair and waiting for them to be delivered from Jan Meier. Thanks everyone

 

[Gluegun]

Hey, what about some Headroom Cases? Would they be the right sizes?

 

[JMT]

Quote:

Do the HD600s come with any sort of case?

Yes they do. I have one that I purchased from a fellow Head-Fier and use it to store my 580s. In my opinion it is not designed for protection against any type of outside element. It is simply for putting them to bed for the night.

 

[jude]

Quote:

Originally posted by grrr223 I understand the desire to protect your babies, but does anyone else think these pelican cases are overkill?

That's the point -- they're our audio babies!

If you decide to put those HD-600's that you'll be getting in a lesser case and drop it (assuming you decide to carry it around at all), you'll quickly understand just why I use such a case.

If I was to get a new foam set for my case, pluck out just enough for an egg, and then close the case around it and drop it off my roof, I'd be surprised if the egg was cracked.

VERY off-topic story:

This reminds me of a funny story from way back in high school. For Physics class extra credit, we had to come up with a way to protect an egg from breaking from a fall from the highest part of the football bleachers -- don't know how high it was exactly, but it was high. Man, the elaborate stuff some of the students came up with.....some fella suspended his in the middle of what looked like a sphere by Buckminster Fuller. Another person had a shoebox with an egg suspension system strung diagonally across the inside, made of a pair of nylons (pantyhose). Anyway, a key point here is that there were no extra points for fancy presentation -- your egg either survived or it didn't.

Anyway, one of my best friends and I went to a local major chain drug store to get some ideas. It took all of a minute to figure it out. We saw these immense car wash sponges and bought two. At home, we cut them in half, plucked out enough for one egg, placed an egg inside, closed the two sponge halves, and duct taped it shut. Needless to say, we discovered that no matter how high we threw our sponge-encased eggs in the air, ground impact didn't break the eggs through the sponges.

The morning of the official drops, everyone thought we'd cheaped out with our ten-minute sponge contraptions. Well, our eggs survived, but the Buckminster Fuller-lookin' device did not save its passenger -- I don't remember if the pantyhose device worked or not. Several made it, several didn't. None were as simple as our sponges. Our eggs survived, we got the extra credit, so we didn't much care about our devices' lack of style!

Our other extra credit projects included a toothpick bridge (had to support as much weight as possible, and let's just say that I didn't get anywhere close to the 108-pound record -- the bolt that held the weight-holding bucket buckled my bridge, and then putting the empty bucket on that broke it), the catapults, and the cannons (purely mechanical, no explosives allowed -- my buddy and I used obnoxiously-patterned rolled-up linoleum for our cannon tubes). Ah, memories....

Sorry for the off-topic story, but it came to mind....

 

[coolvij]

LOL! jude - i had to the egg drop activity in 6TH grade - and, I'm sad to say, an omelet was lost that day.....

 

[jude]

Quote:

Originally posted by coolvij LOL! jude - i had to the egg drop activity in 6TH grade - and, I'm sad to say, an omelet was lost that day.....

So I have to ask, coolvj....what sort of contraption did you use?

 

[CaptBubba]

I'd say definatly not, much too expensive.

Must resist off topic posting...ah what the heck.

In eigth grade I was part of a solar car building team. The teacher's idea was to get us into science and ect. Our idea was to get as much time out of class as possible. For two weeks we would leave random periods to go "work on the solar car". Now, the odd thing is, it never occured to us to actualy WORK on the solar car. We had the materials we wanted, and ocassionaly one of us would pick up the solar panel and mess around with it (I made a little fan because it was hot out). Finaly on the last day, we had to do work. Seeing as we didn't have time to work with complicated gears, our design consisted of sicking a gear on the moter and bringing it into direct contact with a soft foam wheel. By some miricle (and a lot of hot glue and duck tape) it worked, and we were happy that while it may not go fast, it still went and therefore was proof that we did do something during all those missed periods.

On race day we were prepared to get whipped, but our car was the fastest of all! It looked like a pile of junk put on top of some foam backing, but compared to the other cars, it went. It may not be as memorable as flinging eggs from high spaces, but the look on the other teams' faces when our moving pile of assorted parts went past theirs is something I will remeber forever, i wish I had a picture.

 

[coolvij]

LOL, jude. Fine, i'll tell u.

FIRST OFF - WE WERE HELD BACK! our class could only use straws and silly putty or something like that - nothing as open-ended and elaborate as yours..

My partner and I basically, ahem, surrounded the egg with straws, and silly putty, and.....there was quite a mess. I think it was a problem of over-implementation (a sharp eye could probably catch 5-6 different designs when looking at our "casing" from different angles

). So.......an egg was lost in the name of science.

Though it didn't really affect me personally, since i don't eat eggs/meat/etc.