These babies can sing. That's all I can say. I had never tried a pair of Grados before these and I'm pretty shocked (in a good way.)
The box leaves some to be desired, a pizza-box style box, with an image of a pair of Grado woodies on it. It has a GRADO headphones name in vintage-ish blue/purple/orange, and a quotation reading "truly the world's finest." Nothing too special, but boxes aren't what headphones are all about
Opening the box I was greeted by my sexy new cans in a piece of foam cut out to fit the headphones. They definitely looked nice. Vinyl headband, retro but solid looking plastic build, and an incredibly thick cable. They looked a little flimsy, but after feeling them my worries abated a little bit. It smelled kind of weird though, don't know why.
The sound out of the box was good. Not quite to the level of astounding, but better than anything I had heard before. The highs were great. I can't say sparkly, because they weren't they were just natural. It sounded a tad shrill at first, which eventually mellowed out.
The bass is what the prestige series generally get picked on for. I have to agree, there is not much in the way of quantity of bass. There's a nice little thump but definitely not much in the way of quantity. Quality, on the other hand, is alot better. the bass that is present is nice, textured and not over emphasized.
The mids are where these really shine. Again, I won't call these smooth mids or anything, just natural. Guitars sound perfectly life-like. My favorite song (Map of Your Head, by Muse) is acoustic guitar orientated, and never in my life have I ever heard it sound this good.
The soundstage is.... well, almost non-existent. Not necessarily in a bad way, because the imaging itself kind of makes up for it, but it definitely sounds fairly left/right orientated.
Clarityis good on these, especially after quarter modding. Detail retrieval is substantial for what I thought was a more "fun" orientated pair of headphones, and the sound seems very effortless, never really getting congested, and always maintaining good seperation
You don't need an amp with these, but I do notice a slight improvement, which is nice.
I've had minor comfort issues, and of course these leak sound like most grados .
In summary, these are great entry level headphones