Comparing the Grado Headphones: Part 1 - Intro and Amps (HPA1, RA1, CMOY)
I have now compared ALL of the current or recent models of Grado headphones, including two vintage headphones, to two other Grado headphones closest in the model lineup. I have also performed these three-way comparisons to two Grado headphone amps and one commonly-used non-Grado model. I have used the same formalized listening tests, summarized below, for a total of 41 different headphones in 18 different three-way comparisons. Of those, 17 Grado products (headphones and amps) are compared in 11 three-way comparisons.
The following several posts will described the results of these three-way comparisons for all members of the Prestige Series (SR60, SR80i, SR125, SR225i, and SR325e), the iGrado portable headphone, the PS500, and the three woodies (RS1, RS1i, and RS2i). These posts will also get my post count to the threshold of Headphoneus Supremus and will be used as exhibits of my usefulness as I apply for that lofty status to The Powers That Be!
An earlier post on this thread compared the PS1000, the GS1000e, and the Joseph Grado HP1000 (HP1), as described
here. (click on the previous "here" to jump to the post). Another previous post
(here) compared the PS1000 to the PS500 with its stock pads ("L bowls") and then with its stock pads replaced by the over-ear pads used by the PS1000 ("G cush").
Several other posts have applied these tests to compare the Grado PS500, PS1000, and RS1i to non-Grado headphones. These include Grado PS500 vs. Sennheiser CX 300 II (IEM) vs Sennheiser HD 598, HiFiMAN HE-500 vs. Grado PS500 vs. Shure SE535 (IEMs)
(here), the Stax SR5/SRD6 vs. Grado PS500 vs. Klipsch S4i (IEM)
(here), and the Sennheiser HD 800, Grado PS1000, and Grado RS1i
(here).
For the comparison, 10 acoustic features important to me in listening are used (transparency, sound stage width, positional resolution, subbass impact, and several others). The 10 acoustic tests came from four pieces of music, played as CD-quality lossless files. For each feature, each headphone is ranked as first (given a blue color in comparison tables), second (red), or third (gold). I tried to be conservative in declaring a change: if I did not think I could reliably notice a difference in a blind test, I declared a tie. Ties for first are colored purple (blue + red) and for second place are orange (red + yellow). Points were awarded - 3 for first, 2.5 for tie for first, 2 for second, 1.5 for tie for second, and 1 for third place. Using these, a summary score was computed reflecting the ranking of each headphone model over all 10 features. Differences of less than three are considered insignificant in these summed scores. The features and music selection are described more completely
here and summarized as follows:
Test Method:
I used four songs, all encoded in Apple Lossless Format at CD quality (I actually bought the CDs and ripped them... no internet download involved) and played by my Apple iPod Touch 5th Gen. Because each of the 10 acoustic tests used a limited segment of music (2 - 10 sec), an infinite loop was used to repeat the appropriate segment of each song while headphones were switched in and out.
- "You're Going To Miss Me When I'm Gone," by Band of Heathens, from their album One Foot In The Ether (used for fidelity of drum sound, positional resolution of two vocalists, and ability to discern pitch of string bass passages);
- "Spanish Harlem," by Rebecca Pidgeon, on The Ultimate Demonstration Disc of Chesky records (used to assess female vocals, transparency, the attack of finger on bass string, and high resolution discrimination of differences in shaker shakes);
- "Symphony No. 3 in C Minor Op. 78 (Organ Symphony) - IV" by Camille Saint Saens played by Lorin Maazel and the Pittsburgh Sympony Orchestra (used to assess the "ripping" sound of well-rendered lower brass and organ reed pipes, and the ability to hear a very small entrance amidst a bombastic chord of orchestra and organ at full tilt);
- "Throwback" by B.o.B. on Underground Luxury (used to assess ability of a bass tone, specifically lowest C on piano at about 32 Hz, to pick me up by the throat and shake me!)
The 10 tests were as follows:
- Transparency: What is between me and the music? A felt cloth? A "Sennheiser veil?" A frosted window? Dirty window? Clear Saran wrap? or nothing? At its best, makes me forget I am listening on headphones and am in room with musicians.
- Width of sound stage: How far to the left and to the right, (yes, AND up and down in best cases) does it seem the musical sources are arranged?
- Positional resolution: Can I distinguish a difference in position of two singers in Song 1?
- Bass visceral: Does the bass in third verse of Song 4 actually shake me? Or do I just hear it?
- Drum "twang": At start of Song 1, do the bass and tom tom drumhead have a tone and a pitch, rather than just a thump?
- Bass pitch perception: For the complicated bass runs in Song 1, do I hear a pitch with sufficient accuracy to sing or transcribe the part?
- Bass finger pluck: Do I hear the actual impact of fingers on the bass string just before hearing its sound on Song 2?
- Shaker variation: In Song 2, verse 3, do the various shaker shakes sound a bit different from each other, as they should?
- "Ripping" of organ / brass: In Song 3, is there the sensation of hearing each vibration of the French horn and low organ reed tones (sort of the tonal counterpart to hearing a "pitch" from a drumhead in Test 5);
- Discern added chord: About 1:38 into Song 3, after the full orchestra and organ hold a chord at the top of a passage, can I hear a small number of orchestra instruments join in, as sort of an echo, in the second measure of that chord?
These tests generally emphasize what I find most pleasing in a headphone, namely high-frequency-related features including transparency, upper harmonics of sounds from drum-head, brass, organ pipe, and string bass, and high-resolution effects such as fine detail of each shaker sound and the finger on the bass string.
Grados Compared to Non-Grado Headphones
Here is a chart of the comparisons of Grado headphones with other models, listed two paragraphs above. Again, these show the total score for each headphone (23 for Grado PS500, winning overall first in preference, through Sennheiser HD 598 at 19 points, third, for the first three-way comparison).
The above tests serve as an anchor to place the following tests of Grados within the population of headphones at large.
Observations from Comparing 13 Grados and 3 Amps
Running these tests gave me several conclusions, which I summarize in advance of the ensuing test results:
- I preferred the PS1000 to any of the other Grado -1000s, including (surprisingly to me) the rare, sought-after HP1000. I think that the larger soundstage of the PS1000, as well as its greater transparency (the HP1000 seems to predate the startling transparency now typical of all Grados) pushed it ahead of the others;
- I came almost indistinguishably close to the PS1000 sound by placing the over-ear PS1000 pads on the PS500. The only difference that I could reliably detect was in the larger sound stage of the PS1000.
- As much as I liked the PS1000, I liked the RS1i even better, due to the RS1i greater transparency, ability to preserve bass pitch, and fidelity in producing the vibrating "ripping" sound that I associate with the reed stops on an organ and the blat of brass (this is one of the Grado-to-other-brand tests shown in the table above, detailed here);
- As much as I liked the RS1i (ranking it higher, though by an insignificant amount, over the Sennheiser HD800 as well as the PS1000), I liked the classic RS1 (with wood buttons) even better, and (big surprise to me) I rated the RS2i even higher! In fact, the RS2i is my highest-ranking Grado, based on these three-way preference comparisons;
- I could detect no reliable difference between the SR225i and the SR325e. They scored equally on each of the 10 feature tests, where they were also compared to the PS500. This surprised me so much that I went back and revisted the tests, once I discovered this (I only compute the comparison scores after the entire test is done, so I did not immediately notice this tie). The SR325 is known as the brightest of the Grados, while the SR225 is regarded as "center of the road" in brightness, so there should be a difference. Perhaps the reason is that I was testing the Grado SR325e against the SR225i. The Grado -e series, in general, is known for adding a bit more bass extension and taming the trebles a bit vs. the older -i series. I'd be most interested if others with both the SR325e and SR225i compare them and think that they could reliably distinguish them in a blind test;
- My preferences for the Prestige ("SR") series followed their pricing (aside from this tie), i.e., SR325e = SR225i > SR125 > SR80i > SR60;
- The three amplifiers (Joseph Grado Signature Products HPA-1, Grado Labs RA1, and JDS Labs CMOY BB 2.03, in Altoids mint box) all did an excellent job. Other than a glaring distortion on subbass introduced by the CMOY, it was hard to distinguish the three by sound.
With these lengthy preliminaries out of the way, I report on the results of comparing the Joseph Grado HPA-1, Grado Labs RA1, and JDS CMOY BB 2.03.
Comparing Amps for Grados: HPA1, RA1, CMOY
I used my top-rated RA2i headphones for listening to all three amps. For the CMOY BB ("bass boost"), I left the bass boost feature turned off.
Here are the detailed results.
Score differences of less than three are not likely significant. Best performance was given by the Joseph Grado Signature Products HPA-1 (also the most expensive, at $1,000, though out of production). The Grado Labs RA1 scored second, with a bit less soundstage and less subbass. The CMOY was third, but was a very good amp. However, the CMOY had one significant problem -- for the subbass test (Song #4 above), the subbass tone was very distorted. This held at any volume level, and the batteries were fresh. Again, the bass boost was turned off on the amp.
But aside from this subbass problem with the CMOY (which is a rare occurence), the differences were small enough that if I were just presented with one amp to hear, I would not likely be able to tell which it was.