[devouringone3]

Quote:

I think the best thing that can be done in these cases is to ignore the obnoxious behavior of the poster and not take his bait. 
 
And now back to the original intent of this thread. I am enjoying the hell out of my 80i, how are everyone else enjoying their Grados?
 
Cheers,
Dan

 
Actually I agree with very much all that Xander said, although I would not have the courage or the disinterest to speak it out loud. He on the other hand is brutally direct, and I understand how it can be hard to accept/tolerate in the club. But he doesn't seem to care much about it either, and has not escalated like some of you. I'd suggest you not to care about him more than he cares about you, especially if his comments or behavior stirs you negative and energy-draining emotion... I would also suggest Xander to tame it down, or else he will A) not make friend B) draw moderator's attention where it's not needed.
 
 
Quote:

You argue a lot.  People that disagree with you are "absurd" and "atrocious"--or at least their positions are.  That's great.
 
How many years have you been listening to your own serious/at least decent headphones (I see the Grado SR 60 in your profile)?  You don't sound like you have much life experience.

 
Hey, he has not called anyone absurd or atrocious; he's referring to ideas more than people, and he has not targeted anyone.
 
I don't think you can know much about his life experience by looking at his headphones roster and gear.
 
 

I think the point people are making is that you have a problem with people who don't believe what you believe. Why have a problem with anyone here for the way they feel about this? It's ridiculous, it's petty, and you embarrass yourself.

 
He don't seem to me like a voluntary trouble-maker, he doesn't even seem to realize the short-term impact of his comments on some people.

 

[LCfiner]

I sent my Magnums to be recabled a few days ago (they had an XLR out that I would not use and were a bit unwieldily so I’m getting a thinner, shorter cable) and I miss having them here. As a change from the big, massive sound of the LCD3, I’ve plugged in my SR60 for some listening and it still impresses me just how much of that fun Grado sound you can get for 80 bucks. They are the definition of toe tapping.
 
Oh, and adding flats to the SR60 to replace the comfies is a real nice upgrade to the bass impact and lower mids. 

 

[CrystalT]

When I did things to upgrade my SR60's bass impact, i found that it detracted from the overall quality. As it is, I personally prefer the impact felt from percussion instruments, which happens in the mids.

 

[LCfiner]

Quote:

When I did things to upgrade my SR60's bass impact, i found that it detracted from the overall quality. As it is, I personally prefer the impact felt from percussion instruments, which happens in the mids.

 
well, your mods were a little odd so I can see why. First, you kept the comfies on there and that is where a lot of the low frequencies escape since the comfies are so porous. then you added the heavy pleather stuff on top of the comfies and greatly increased the distance from the driver to your ear, which will reduce the mids.
 
to try to get an approximation of the flats without having to buy them, take the comfies and apply some scotch tape around the edge (experiment with thickness of the strip). The flats are quite a bit denser than comfies so they keep in more bass while keeping the driver real close to the ear so the mids don’t sound distant and the highs are nice and sweet.
 
moving the drivers further away from the ears with a grado that’s not tuned for that distance will typically make things sound weird

 

[our martin]

Just ordered myself some grado gs1000i for my outdoor cabin in cala gracio ibiza! p.s They will be plugged into a olive 06hd music streamer, i shouldn't need a headphone amp,i hope!

Spoiler: Warning%3A%20Spoiler!

 

[bbophead]

Quote:

 
 
 
moving the drivers further away from the ears with a grado that’s not tuned for that distance will typically make things sound weird

Yeah, I'm weird that way.

 

[our martin]

Big Grado sound signature variation of the same models..Theres another thread on headfi about grados sounding different but i couldn't paste the link..P.s I think it's because i am in england but not certain!

 

[Gwarmi]

Quote:

Big Grado sound signature variation of the same models..theres another thread on headfi about grados sounding different but i couldn't paste the link..P.s I think it's because i am in england but not certain!

 
 I'm pretty convinced that no two PS1000's are exactly alike - heard 3 x different pairs now and they seem
to each have their own slight differences on the same material 

 

[our martin]

 

1. [img]http://cdn.head-fi.org/c/c3/100x100px-LS-c30c2648_gradologo.png[/img]

1. kite7
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1. 2,006 Posts. Joined 10/2006
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I briefly owned a RS1i and it sounds very different from my RS1 2003. The RS1i in fact sound so different that I'm afraid that if someone heard it, they would believe that it is the representation of the grado sound when it is definitely not. It's not a small difference, and I don't understand why this difference exists. I don't think it's possible that the sound changed that much since 2003. I personally prefer the brighter RS1 much more. For the RS1i, the upper midrange spike has been toned down a lot taking away some of the clarity in the guitars. The bass is boosted to give the user an impression of more dynamics.
 
I have had a 2008 RS1 with buttons (Sold) , MS-Proi(Sold) and now RS1i (Sold). All of these sound very similar to one another, identical I'd say. More importantly, all of these don't even sound bright nor do they have the upper midrange spike that my 2003 RS1 has that makes guitars and drums sound very real and exciting. Drums and guitars on these RS1i sound just like any other headphone and don't stand out. I don't think I own defective RS1i because I've already owned two other grados (bought from two different sellers from the world) that sound the same. I personally looked at the voice coil (red) and color of the driver (white), and they look the same as the RS1 2008 and Ms-Proi.
 
The soundstage is the same as a grado, that's where the similarity ends. The treble seems to be lurking the background and isn't as protruding , the midrange sounds full but something about it makes it seem like there is a lack of clarity. The bass while the amount has increased, doesn't sound as tight as my RS1. I'm fairly disappointed in what I've heard, so disappointed that I got rid of it quickly. I clearly remember that my RS1 sounds exactly like the RS1i I demoed from a store downtown but why does this RS1i and the two other grados sound so different? Did Grado have an odd batch?
 
Now I haven’t given up looking for a RS1i that sounds close to my RS1 so I bought another RS1i. They still don’t sound as bright but they are noticeably better than the other ones I’ve owned, less midrange muddiness. I’m not so sure I should continue looking anymore. Why is there such a big variation in sound?
 
They really sound nothing like RS1 and previous SR80 and SR225 I’ve owned. At this point, I start to question how many of these “darker” sounding grados are out there. I think everyone should be aware of this because the sound difference is massive while we could technically have the same model. Ever wonder why some people’s impression of the same grado model vastly disagrees with some others? Something just doesn't seem right
 
My impression of the sound
 
Grado (SR80,SR225,early ~2003 RS1): Bright, blatant upper midrange peak, tight bass light, crisp sounding. Summary: Harsher raw sounding grado
 
Other Grados (RS1i,RS1i,MS-Proi, ~2008 RS1) : Midbass presence boosted, overly warm midrange, rounded sounding and not crisp, tamed upper mid spike. Polite but still detailed highs.Summary: A gentle and more lean sounding grado
 
 

 

[pcf]

All the RS1i I heard sound the same, what Kit7 experienced might be an isolated case. I am not a big fan of them, but in my opinion RS1i still sounds better than most of the older RS1 ( classic; buttoned; buttonless, whatever...) except for the very early vintage ones. If I have to choose between a buttoned "chassic" RS1 and RS1i, I would pick RS1i . Better still, swap the RS1i drivers for a pair of Magnum...
As for PS1000- I haven't heard the chrome version but I agree that the earlier models do have variations, so much so that I had to send mine back to Grado Labs for checking just to get my piece of mind.

 

[LCfiner]

The GS1000 is tricky to amp. it’s more a question of synergy and how the amp is voiced than just power (as it doesn’t need a lot of it)
 
That high end Olive might have an amp that measures well but makes the GS1000 sound too brittle (like the DAC1 amp I had) or it might be a more forgiving amp and mesh perfectly well with the cans. 
 
I think it’s best to wait till you hear the combo before deciding if you need another amp
 
and you may decide you’d rather have a PS1000 instead of another amp with the GS1000. I’ve always found that transducers make a bigger difference than amps, anyway 

 

[obobskivich]

THURSDAY?? How am I supposed to wait that long??? lol

I know right?

I hate that feeling. Especially when the package chills at the post office for a few days because there's other packages that are higher priority. I especially hate when that's happening, and they won't let you just go there and pick it up yourself. :'(

This. This also sucks.

The RA-1's internal circuit was designed by Sidney Stockton Smith (http://www.stereophile.com/news/10884/) that designed all of the original Marantz High Fidelity products, he is a revered audio engineer and considered a genius. He made this "portable" design at the request of Joseph Grado for his HPA signature headphone amplifier (to drive the HP 1000), somewhere around 1989. I don't know about the RA-1, but the HPA's capacitors are custom made to have synergy with the HP 1000. I think that it's still the philosophy behind the RA-1 (to have synergy with current Grado headphones), but most of the parts used are of lesser quality compared to the HPA, which costed to much to produce (Grado lost money on each unit).

I love my HPA-1, although it has too much background/power hiss when listened to with John Grados (for me to use them with it, at least), it's barely audible with higher impedance headphones like HP 1000 (40 ohms, a bit less sensitive) though. It sounds more powerful than anything else I have.

I think cMoy's design is even more complex than that of Grado amps (and that Head-Fi calls "cMoy" anything that is small and has simple circuitry in it [http://www.head-fi.org/t/472214/are-most-headamps-overpriced-cmoys]). While most cMoys use only one battery, the HPA/RA-1 uses one 9 volt per channel, you need two or else you'll hear a big screech, lol I did try it.


But I understand that you are revising your choice, although RA-1 sounds good with Grado and plays loud, it looks sub-par compared to every other headphone amplifiers of this millennium. Only Grado fanatics use it, lol.

RA-1 can be had at 200 dollars easily on the used market. HPA on the other hand, is nowhere to be found (I've been trying for about 4 months now), I ended up paying a premium price for mine, 800 EUR, which once you convert it is more than the retail price of 795 USD! It was sold on Head-Fi in the past of a lot less... :/

Dude, you need to be hired as the Grado librarian/historian for the company...seriously. It's just uncanny how much you know about this company. I'm willing to wager if I sent you my new RS-1's SN, you could probably find the tree it came from...

Awesome info, as always, and I'm kind of on the fence in general on a head-amp at this point. Mostly because I'm looking at two of the most efficient dynamics out there, and the PC should have no problems driving both of them. That said, if I end up getting an amp, popularity aside, the RA-1 will probably be it; simply because it matches (I know, it's vain, but if I'm gonna spend a hojillion dollars on a non-pragmatic accessory, it can at least be one I like; right?). But at this point I'm gonna see how they do with the PC.

 

[Errymoose]

Mentioned before about wanting a tube amp to go with my RS1i.... currently waiting for a Little Dot 1+ and Sylvania Gold 408A tubes to arrive. So hyped about seeing what this synergy with grado's  and tubes is liked...

 

[devouringone3]

Quote:

Dude, you need to be hired as the Grado librarian/historian for the company...seriously. It's just uncanny how much you know about this company. I'm willing to wager if I sent you my new RS-1's SN, you could probably find the tree it came from...

Awesome info, as always, and I'm kind of on the fence in general on a head-amp at this point. Mostly because I'm looking at two of the most efficient dynamics out there, and the PC should have no problems driving both of them. That said, if I end up getting an amp, popularity aside, the RA-1 will probably be it; simply because it matches (I know, it's vain, but if I'm gonna spend a hojillion dollars on a non-pragmatic accessory, it can at least be one I like; right?). But at this point I'm gonna see how they do with the PC.

 
Thank you! lol maybe, but I just want to make sure of one thing: you know that I did not found and wrote all the "Full Grado Labs History" facts list right? I took them off Grado's Facebook. Okay now.
 
Lol yeah by reading Kite7's post I really started believing the wooden RS-1 has had good years and less good years, like wine. My first "real" (Head-Fi) headphone was that "2003 RS1" he's talking about. I sometimes call him the "RS-1 expert", he has owned 7 of them in total (8 if you count the MS-Proi lol).
 
Actually! they're so sensitive that I hear static and pages loading connected to my Dell Inspiron 1720's jack, almost as loud as you would with an IEM. It's not loud though, but it's there, and it can be heard within a very calm (almost silent) part of a song on top of the usual hiss noise that would also be present in it, (to give you an example). It's because it's harder to forget that it's there than a pink noise hiss (which you'll probably get some with the RA-1, to a small extent, in the background, but the users said not being be bothered by it), because it's an irregular noise and made up of high frequencies.
 
Although you surely don't have any of that with a real soundcard (sorry for making a big deal out of it, but the RA-1 is a waned amplifier around here, you would have trouble selling it, so I want to help you decide and it's really my narrow field of expertise too , you could test it with a pair of sensitive low impedance headphones (like a IEM), that's why I have an external DAC.

 

[188479]

Hi All:

A quick question. I just purchased a pair of HF-2's to replace my 225i's. How does the HF-2 stack up against the PS500? Is it basically the same? Also, what are the best Grado pads for the HF-2. Thanks!