VonRip
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2010
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The Joseph Grado Signature HP-2 , the Grado Labs Prestige Series SR-325, and the Sennheiser HD-650 headphones. Much has been written about each of these products, so for those of you not familiar allow me to use a simple visual analogy to describe what many regard as the Grado Labs and Sennheiser house sound. We have all shared the experience of looking at a row of TVs in a retail store and noticed that some monitors really catch our eye and stand out from the crowd. A truly natural and well balanced TV often seems a little bland or dull next to those other sets. It didn't take TV manufactures long to figure out that if they bumped up the RGB blue and their picture sharpness customers would think they see whiter whites and more picture detail - This is the Grado Labs SR-325 approach with their bass hump and resulting (4k) mid-band peak. Other TV manufactures, decided that bumping up the color and contrast would appeal to customers wanting a warmer and more dramatic picture - This is the Sennheiser HD-650 (v1.0) approach with massive bass and large scale dynamic impact.
Nothing is wrong with creating a strong visual or sonic signature in your product as it certainly generates brand loyalty and of course sales. TVs are easy, if you don't like the picture use the old clicker and change it to match your taste. Headphones not so much, if you feel the manufacture didn't get it right, you can start playing the cable and/or separate amp upgrade game and sometimes succeed in putting a little lipstick on that pig.
Back in the day, many headphone manufactures genuinely worked hard to deliver products that neither embellished nor subtracted from a musical presentation. Enter the Joseph Grado HP-2 reference quality headphones - why reference from this 20 year old design? At first listen nothing about these headphones reaches out and grabs you, their sound is so neutral as to be almost very slightly dark. The answer is that the HP-2 drivers being of such superb quality and being quite literally encased in metal are able to reproduce terrific micro-dynamic information. The magic of these headphones is that in short order the listener is drawn into the presentation and just forgets about the headphones. As you listen you hear the subtle dynamics of each instrument and of all of the instruments as they are being played together. Attack, decay, tonal balance, harmonic overtones, are all as they should be even during moments of great musical impact! The micro-dynamics pinpoint the spatial location of musical instruments and does much to recreate a convincing sound-stage.
The HP-2's neutral balance means that the listener doesn't have to hear massive droning bass all the time as with the HD-650s or a punched-up upper bass like with the SR-325s. The HP-2 will give you extended bass down to 25Hz but only when called for in the presentation, and the bass has both texture and tonality. The HP-2's treble is clean and at the same time delicate without the harshness or grain found in the mid-treble of the SR-325 nor is the treble overwhelmed by the bass as with the HD-650. I am not trying to make an indictment of these headphones as after all I own all three, for example the HD-650s with their heavy bass and high impact are wonderful in my home theater system.
Yet in this day of predominate low quality MP3 recordings we have an offering of headphone products from manufactures more intent in creating buzz and profits than really good headphones. Lest you think I'm being too critical, consider what is coming from the likes of Bose or Skullcandy. This community needs to do all that it can to foster and encourage true innovation not just warmed up retreads of last years models. How about some more of those renowned loudspeaker companies bringing new designs and technologies into our marketplace and upsetting the current bright side / dark side status quo?
Anyway, I just hooked up all of these headphones to my HTPC and thought I would share my impressions and a couple of photos.
Nothing is wrong with creating a strong visual or sonic signature in your product as it certainly generates brand loyalty and of course sales. TVs are easy, if you don't like the picture use the old clicker and change it to match your taste. Headphones not so much, if you feel the manufacture didn't get it right, you can start playing the cable and/or separate amp upgrade game and sometimes succeed in putting a little lipstick on that pig.
Back in the day, many headphone manufactures genuinely worked hard to deliver products that neither embellished nor subtracted from a musical presentation. Enter the Joseph Grado HP-2 reference quality headphones - why reference from this 20 year old design? At first listen nothing about these headphones reaches out and grabs you, their sound is so neutral as to be almost very slightly dark. The answer is that the HP-2 drivers being of such superb quality and being quite literally encased in metal are able to reproduce terrific micro-dynamic information. The magic of these headphones is that in short order the listener is drawn into the presentation and just forgets about the headphones. As you listen you hear the subtle dynamics of each instrument and of all of the instruments as they are being played together. Attack, decay, tonal balance, harmonic overtones, are all as they should be even during moments of great musical impact! The micro-dynamics pinpoint the spatial location of musical instruments and does much to recreate a convincing sound-stage.
The HP-2's neutral balance means that the listener doesn't have to hear massive droning bass all the time as with the HD-650s or a punched-up upper bass like with the SR-325s. The HP-2 will give you extended bass down to 25Hz but only when called for in the presentation, and the bass has both texture and tonality. The HP-2's treble is clean and at the same time delicate without the harshness or grain found in the mid-treble of the SR-325 nor is the treble overwhelmed by the bass as with the HD-650. I am not trying to make an indictment of these headphones as after all I own all three, for example the HD-650s with their heavy bass and high impact are wonderful in my home theater system.
Yet in this day of predominate low quality MP3 recordings we have an offering of headphone products from manufactures more intent in creating buzz and profits than really good headphones. Lest you think I'm being too critical, consider what is coming from the likes of Bose or Skullcandy. This community needs to do all that it can to foster and encourage true innovation not just warmed up retreads of last years models. How about some more of those renowned loudspeaker companies bringing new designs and technologies into our marketplace and upsetting the current bright side / dark side status quo?
Anyway, I just hooked up all of these headphones to my HTPC and thought I would share my impressions and a couple of photos.
