nikongod
DIY-ku
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2005
- Posts
- 8,882
- Likes
- 130
Hello Head-FI
A mini-review of sorts was requested of a few headphones I own.
For this I will be using an Estsound E5 as source (with nominal upgrades) and BOTH a Melos-SHA-gold Maestrobator (A real Carlo maestrobator... biggest and baddest of the bunch) and “the silver ghost” my DIY OTL balanced tube creation.
The headphones are:
Grado SR-325 (black shells) with yellow HD-414 pads, quarter modded
Grado RS-1 with brown headband using flats
Grado HP-2 with ultra wide bandwidth cable (as reference or tiebreaker where necessary)
All 3 headphones are wired to run balanced, and a short adapter made of cardas headphone cable will be used to plug into the Melos.
The first song is The Shanghill Butchers by The Decemberists (off of the head-fi party at neils compilation album) on the melos.
There is not really much bass on this track, but the highs are a little tricky. There is some VERY low-level detail in the various parts of the organ moving. The RS-1 play it nice and smooth. The SR-325 have a hair more treble, and go SLIGHTLY sibilant on the singers voice at times, its not even close to unpleasant, but its a bit more obvious here. This song has a “wandering singer” sound where the vocalist is made to sound like he is moving around the stage as may happen at a small-venue performance, it is used EXCEPTIONALLY tastefully here and reinforces the overall theme of a singer addressing a gathering in a small village. Both headphones do this trick well moving him smoothly around the stage without “gapping” or any other shenanigans as he travels.
Next up is”Air Born” by Camel off of the same compilation CD, on the silver ghost.
This track opens with an airy flute but quickly gets into more drums and vocals. The vocals are much closer on this track than the previous, they sound a little more “mastered” or computerized than the other. The highs are still a little more forwards on the SR-325. The bass, and various drum sections are harder to pin down. The SR-325 has better impact on the higher pitched drums, but the RS-1 does the lower drums a bit better.
The song “challengers” on the album “challengers” by the new pornographers is up on the melos.
The song starts off with a strong bass-guitar (maybe upright bass actually) it really moves it along. The female vocals are well supported by the instruments, and not overpowered despite being somewhat light or airy.
The bass guitar sounds a little more organic on the RS-1, with the SR-325 still not a slouch. I swapped pads for a moment here (put the flats on the 325) and the 325 improved a HAIR in the bass, but didnt really change that much in the treble.
The next up is “I couldn't hear nobody bray” off of the album “I couldn't hear nobody pray” by the fairfield four on the silver ghost. Its 100% vocal with a little clapping and foot tapping in there, but really just a small male-vocal group.
Both headphones do very similarly on this one, I guess its just the grado house sound with great vocals. The SR-325 do have a SLIGHT edge on sound stage here pushing the performers a little further apart. The highest (frequency) part of this track are simply not as high as the others, and the SR-325 are not sibilant at all: they are not predisposed to sibilance, but not shy of it either. I dont think the RS-1 have a flaw in here, because they are sibilant on other music, but just slightly less sensitive to it.
For some crazyness I put on an old SKA/punk disc. I chose the song “mendoza” on the album “evildoers beware” by the band mustard plug using the silver ghost again. Just your standard medium to fast-paced ska/punk beats with a fast vocalist.
The song starts off with a bass-guitar and the drums for a bit. There is some distortion on the left channel (in the guitar) It sounds pretty good, although Im not 100% sure it was intentional. A rock band could integrate it well with their music... Anyways, if this were a rock album, I would prefer the SR-325 on that section, the RS-1 tried to dull out the “crunch” and hash of the distortion a little too much. Simply put, the distortion sounded more like distortion on the SR-325 than on the RS-1.
Last one:
I put on some Tom Waits “tango till they're sore” on rain dogs, on the melos.
This was a harder bit of music to nail down. The 2 headphones both clearly showed some strengths and weaknesses here. The RS-1 sounds AMAZINGLY better for the piano, while I think it smoothed over Tom Waits' voice a bit. The piano had just an amazingly round, organic sound, but the vocals did not sound like I think his voice really sounds (although I have never heard him in person). The SR-325 on the other hand did not get the piano right like the RS-1, but got the vocals spot on for my imagination. Just to clarify, my imagination of Tom Waits' voice is pretty much pegged by Daniel Durchholz's comment that it sounds: "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." I disagree with the car part as it implies some sort of road-kill meat tenderization techniques, but the rest is spot on. Bottom line is that his voice (in my opinion, and that of others) should not sound smooth, there is meant to be a hard edge to it, which the RS-1's dont get right.
As a last bit of a comparison, with these 2 ways of playing the same song, I put the HP-2 on the melos, and got something in the middle. The vocals were a little rougher than the RS-1 made them out to be, but the piano fit in with the rest of the music better than on the SR-325.
Overall I prefer the RS-1 to the SR-325, but the 325 certainly has some strengths in music that has a focus on distortions, or a particularly dry edgy sound. The RS-1 has an edge when playing lower frequencies.
A mini-review of sorts was requested of a few headphones I own.
For this I will be using an Estsound E5 as source (with nominal upgrades) and BOTH a Melos-SHA-gold Maestrobator (A real Carlo maestrobator... biggest and baddest of the bunch) and “the silver ghost” my DIY OTL balanced tube creation.
The headphones are:
Grado SR-325 (black shells) with yellow HD-414 pads, quarter modded
Grado RS-1 with brown headband using flats
Grado HP-2 with ultra wide bandwidth cable (as reference or tiebreaker where necessary)
All 3 headphones are wired to run balanced, and a short adapter made of cardas headphone cable will be used to plug into the Melos.
The first song is The Shanghill Butchers by The Decemberists (off of the head-fi party at neils compilation album) on the melos.
There is not really much bass on this track, but the highs are a little tricky. There is some VERY low-level detail in the various parts of the organ moving. The RS-1 play it nice and smooth. The SR-325 have a hair more treble, and go SLIGHTLY sibilant on the singers voice at times, its not even close to unpleasant, but its a bit more obvious here. This song has a “wandering singer” sound where the vocalist is made to sound like he is moving around the stage as may happen at a small-venue performance, it is used EXCEPTIONALLY tastefully here and reinforces the overall theme of a singer addressing a gathering in a small village. Both headphones do this trick well moving him smoothly around the stage without “gapping” or any other shenanigans as he travels.
Next up is”Air Born” by Camel off of the same compilation CD, on the silver ghost.
This track opens with an airy flute but quickly gets into more drums and vocals. The vocals are much closer on this track than the previous, they sound a little more “mastered” or computerized than the other. The highs are still a little more forwards on the SR-325. The bass, and various drum sections are harder to pin down. The SR-325 has better impact on the higher pitched drums, but the RS-1 does the lower drums a bit better.
The song “challengers” on the album “challengers” by the new pornographers is up on the melos.
The song starts off with a strong bass-guitar (maybe upright bass actually) it really moves it along. The female vocals are well supported by the instruments, and not overpowered despite being somewhat light or airy.
The bass guitar sounds a little more organic on the RS-1, with the SR-325 still not a slouch. I swapped pads for a moment here (put the flats on the 325) and the 325 improved a HAIR in the bass, but didnt really change that much in the treble.
The next up is “I couldn't hear nobody bray” off of the album “I couldn't hear nobody pray” by the fairfield four on the silver ghost. Its 100% vocal with a little clapping and foot tapping in there, but really just a small male-vocal group.
Both headphones do very similarly on this one, I guess its just the grado house sound with great vocals. The SR-325 do have a SLIGHT edge on sound stage here pushing the performers a little further apart. The highest (frequency) part of this track are simply not as high as the others, and the SR-325 are not sibilant at all: they are not predisposed to sibilance, but not shy of it either. I dont think the RS-1 have a flaw in here, because they are sibilant on other music, but just slightly less sensitive to it.
For some crazyness I put on an old SKA/punk disc. I chose the song “mendoza” on the album “evildoers beware” by the band mustard plug using the silver ghost again. Just your standard medium to fast-paced ska/punk beats with a fast vocalist.
The song starts off with a bass-guitar and the drums for a bit. There is some distortion on the left channel (in the guitar) It sounds pretty good, although Im not 100% sure it was intentional. A rock band could integrate it well with their music... Anyways, if this were a rock album, I would prefer the SR-325 on that section, the RS-1 tried to dull out the “crunch” and hash of the distortion a little too much. Simply put, the distortion sounded more like distortion on the SR-325 than on the RS-1.
Last one:
I put on some Tom Waits “tango till they're sore” on rain dogs, on the melos.
This was a harder bit of music to nail down. The 2 headphones both clearly showed some strengths and weaknesses here. The RS-1 sounds AMAZINGLY better for the piano, while I think it smoothed over Tom Waits' voice a bit. The piano had just an amazingly round, organic sound, but the vocals did not sound like I think his voice really sounds (although I have never heard him in person). The SR-325 on the other hand did not get the piano right like the RS-1, but got the vocals spot on for my imagination. Just to clarify, my imagination of Tom Waits' voice is pretty much pegged by Daniel Durchholz's comment that it sounds: "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." I disagree with the car part as it implies some sort of road-kill meat tenderization techniques, but the rest is spot on. Bottom line is that his voice (in my opinion, and that of others) should not sound smooth, there is meant to be a hard edge to it, which the RS-1's dont get right.
As a last bit of a comparison, with these 2 ways of playing the same song, I put the HP-2 on the melos, and got something in the middle. The vocals were a little rougher than the RS-1 made them out to be, but the piano fit in with the rest of the music better than on the SR-325.
Overall I prefer the RS-1 to the SR-325, but the 325 certainly has some strengths in music that has a focus on distortions, or a particularly dry edgy sound. The RS-1 has an edge when playing lower frequencies.
