I have been a fan of Grado sound for over 4 years now. My first set of cans was Grado SR60 which I replaces with the RS2 and finally with GS1000. I loved their fastpaced and fun sound, they are and forever will be the perfect Rock and Metal and Bollywood cans! (Yes I am a big fan of music from India). But I could never wear them for more than an hour because my head would be hurting with what some call harsh treble.
Now before I go further in this review, I want to talk a little bit about my music philosophy (for whatever its worth
): "When headphone makers such as Grado, Sennheiser, beyerdynamic, AKG release their headphones they never tell you what source or amplifier to use. Thus I believe that for a headphone to be 'really' good they must sound good with any amplifier as long as they are impedence matched."
The reason I mention this is because just because I get a new headphone I must not change my entire source / amplifier setup. Which essentially means that the headphones must be Neutral. They should sound exactly like the sound coming out of the 'headphone out' of the amplifier. Now many have suggested that the panacea to overcome Grado treble is to get a Tube amp like Woo Audio 6 or Zana deux, but I say why, the sound coming from the extremely detailed Benchmark DAC1 or the slightly warm Lavry DA10 should sound good and the headphones should not add to any harshness other than that present in the original recording.
Thats where Testla T1 come in. They are neutral: they donot provide any texture to the music other than what the source / amp provide. Therefore when I plug them to my Macbook Pro or Lavry Da10 or any other source they sound musical, they donot accentuate lack of detail in the Macbook pro output or muddle the bass in the Lavry DA10 warm headphone out. This is something which the GS1000 and RS2 lacked sorely. They needed me to use the EQ to sound 'natural', using Grado is like having headphones with a built in Loudness button, extremely groovy and fun but lacking the comfort and left you feeling as if you are listening to some part of the music - this is called by many as a dip in the mids.
Both GS1000 and T1 are extremely fast they have great sound stage but the T1 beats the GS1000 handily in width of soundstage. You can feel different instruments placed in 3D space as if you are present at the time of performance. This is especially true of Vinyl recordings that were not badly remastered to make CDs.
GS1000 have more visceral punch in the Bass which T1 definitely lacks. T1 is not Bass light but if you switch from Grado to T1 you feel something is missing, but as time passed I realized that I am not missing anything but gaining immense details in the mid bass and vocals.
T1 treble is more refined that Grado, which comes out a grainy in comparison.
In terms of comfort GS1000 are much more comfortable that T1. The light wooded construction, classy goat skin leather headband and the roomy bagel pads were a perfect fit on my medium sized head. T1s are a lot heavy and cause my neck to hurt if I am sitting with them with neck bent to work on my computer. Having said that T1s feel more solidly built and come with 5 years of warranty from beyerdynamic as compared to 1 year with Grado GS1000.
Stock cables on GS1000 and T1s are 24AWG oxygen free copper, which to me sound just about okay for headphone application. It might be worthwhile to upgrade the cables to 18AWG (such as ones ALO audio provides), but I wouldnt recommend anyone to go for overpriced 24 AWG cable. I am an electrical engineer and there is no way 'snake oil' covered 24AWG cable will make any tangible difference in the sound of the headphones.
So which do I prefer, ofcourse the Tesla T1.Dont get me wrong GS1000 are better than every other headphone I have heard, save for the T1.
Now before I go further in this review, I want to talk a little bit about my music philosophy (for whatever its worth
The reason I mention this is because just because I get a new headphone I must not change my entire source / amplifier setup. Which essentially means that the headphones must be Neutral. They should sound exactly like the sound coming out of the 'headphone out' of the amplifier. Now many have suggested that the panacea to overcome Grado treble is to get a Tube amp like Woo Audio 6 or Zana deux, but I say why, the sound coming from the extremely detailed Benchmark DAC1 or the slightly warm Lavry DA10 should sound good and the headphones should not add to any harshness other than that present in the original recording.
Thats where Testla T1 come in. They are neutral: they donot provide any texture to the music other than what the source / amp provide. Therefore when I plug them to my Macbook Pro or Lavry Da10 or any other source they sound musical, they donot accentuate lack of detail in the Macbook pro output or muddle the bass in the Lavry DA10 warm headphone out. This is something which the GS1000 and RS2 lacked sorely. They needed me to use the EQ to sound 'natural', using Grado is like having headphones with a built in Loudness button, extremely groovy and fun but lacking the comfort and left you feeling as if you are listening to some part of the music - this is called by many as a dip in the mids.
Both GS1000 and T1 are extremely fast they have great sound stage but the T1 beats the GS1000 handily in width of soundstage. You can feel different instruments placed in 3D space as if you are present at the time of performance. This is especially true of Vinyl recordings that were not badly remastered to make CDs.
GS1000 have more visceral punch in the Bass which T1 definitely lacks. T1 is not Bass light but if you switch from Grado to T1 you feel something is missing, but as time passed I realized that I am not missing anything but gaining immense details in the mid bass and vocals.
T1 treble is more refined that Grado, which comes out a grainy in comparison.
In terms of comfort GS1000 are much more comfortable that T1. The light wooded construction, classy goat skin leather headband and the roomy bagel pads were a perfect fit on my medium sized head. T1s are a lot heavy and cause my neck to hurt if I am sitting with them with neck bent to work on my computer. Having said that T1s feel more solidly built and come with 5 years of warranty from beyerdynamic as compared to 1 year with Grado GS1000.
Stock cables on GS1000 and T1s are 24AWG oxygen free copper, which to me sound just about okay for headphone application. It might be worthwhile to upgrade the cables to 18AWG (such as ones ALO audio provides), but I wouldnt recommend anyone to go for overpriced 24 AWG cable. I am an electrical engineer and there is no way 'snake oil' covered 24AWG cable will make any tangible difference in the sound of the headphones.
So which do I prefer, ofcourse the Tesla T1.Dont get me wrong GS1000 are better than every other headphone I have heard, save for the T1.
