It has been said so! but myself I never wash them, lol, natural skin oil also softens them.
They say they throw them in the machine with the clothing, I think it's too harsh and will reduce their longevity. I would just let them sink under lukewarm water for 30-60 minutes.
I say stick to them more before doing anything, your ears&surroundings will get used to the sensation of Grado foam in almost no time! If your ears are touching the driver's wall do the shack hack mod with black Sennheiser PX100 replacement pads on eBay for 6.95$.
Yeah I was gonna let'em break in naturally but viewed the dryer thing as a last resort (my dryer loads from the front, and has this "shelf" attachment (I have no idea what it's properly for), I've dried headphone pads and other sensitive stuff using it before (it doesn't let items fly around, they just sit on it and get warm - I washed my HD 580 pads and then wrapped them in a t-shirt and put them on this "shelf" and let it run a cycle, dryed them in like 30 minutes vs letting them air dry for two days)).
People complain about Grado's QC when they break one of the gimbal of their SR60i while trying to disassemble it. I've never had any problem with Grado's QC.
I've never had one break, but for example my SR-60's CJC was kind of "sloppy" looking, and my SR-225's 1/4" jack had burns on it from the soldering. I think they're well put together, but you certainly get the "this was hand made by a single person" feeling (opposed to something like an Ultrasone or Sennheiser where it's like "there is a machine somewhere that feeds in some random substance and stamps out a complete headphone in one motion"). I think the RS-1s I got were/are the Monday Morning Special.
Dude I have trouble conceiving your problem with the clamping force, modern Grado headbands apply almost no pressure at all. Vintages do, and I've gotten used to it to the point I don't feel them on my head anymore.
Plus, RS1 is the second lightest after RS2, but they're really close. Their wood weight almost nothing.
Are your ears touching the driver's wall? That on the other hand is an intolerable source of discomfort, I would understand what you say better
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Okay, so I agree on them being super-duper light (it's uncanny actually, they feel lighter than the ESW9, and they spec heavier; a lot like how the 950 specs heavier than most headphones, and feels as light as the MDR-F1), and the pads are fairly comfy (I've never had issues with touching the driver baffle to my ears either; that's never really bugged me - I once read about a guy who had some RS-1s or HP-1000s or something, and the pads disentegrated, and he didn't know you could buy replacements, so he used them "raw" - I could understand doing that, and it wouldn't really make me insane, but most people were like "OH GOD HOW?"). But they feel "tight" on my noggin compared to the 950s (which are again, wet noodles). I adjusted the rod arms a bit (extended them) and it cleared up a lot of the clamping, so at this point I think it's just the new spring steel. They're really fairly comfortable (after writing the "these clamp" line I ended up listening for another two hours - so that's four hours straight out of the box).
I think it's a myth. Tyll Hertsens once made a review about a Grado headphone and said "These are good for rock[*-ing]" (with your head, while wearing them), because they were lightweight, cool (breathy, looking), both, or something like that (he wasn't relating the sound or anything). Either he did a grammar mistake, or his message was misinterpreted. Tyll thinks that's how the infamous mantra would have gone into existence (a misunderstanding of one of his proposition, in a review he did); *although I just found out he's not too sure about it anymore.
I remember Tyll saying something about this, that he's the unfortunate creator of that myth, and wishes it would go away because it makes it hard to suggest other headphones for rock once you get the parrots involved. Like imho (and I'm not a real big rock fan, I like a few bands from the 1950s-1970s and a few modern progressive groups, and that's about it) every Ultrasone I've ever heard is also fairly good at rock, and I'd go as far as saying the HFI-2400 were born to play things like Nirvana and GLU. I think the RS-1 (and SR-225) both do nice things with rock'n'roll, but I found myself gravitating towards a lot of my pre-existing favorites with the RS-1 - sort of a "re-discovery" kind of thing. They did spectacular with all of the ambient/dub/electro/etc genre stuff I preference (I don't know if it has a coherent genre, but think VAC, AFX, Bruce Haack, Orbital, FSoL, Van Buuren, Thievery Corporation, Daft Punk, etc - that kind of music).
NICE REVIEW MAN!
Why thank you.
As far as the Pope comment, I'm sorry and I don't mean to offend any Catholics in saying this, but I'm just imagining him sitting there with his red shoes and perfect red-lettered HP-1000s jamming out to whatever the Pope listens to to get pumped up to go give a speech/sermon. I can totally picture it.
