Bilavideo
Caution: Incomplete trades.
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The 325i must be the redheaded stepchild of the Grado lineup. I've never heard a Grado can take such a beating as this phone gets, particularly from its Jan-Brady sibling, the SR-225. In posting after posting, the 325 gets a beat-down from those who say its presentation is not just bright but shrill. Blame for this situation has repeatedly gone to the aluminum air chambers, which were supposedly too "cold," whether in comparison to the warmth of mahogany or the who-knows-what of molded plastic, including the molded plastic of the 225s.
Yes, aluminum was such a bad idea, at least until the release of the PS1000 and the "baby PS1000" - the HF2. But, say the critics, we're forgetting that these cans are "hybrids" with mahogany on the front end and aluminum on the back. Apparently, aluminum is not so cold if you bring your mahogany underwear.
So one wonders, then, why the PS1 and the HP-1000 weren't the proverbial witch's t*t in a brass bra. These cans had no mahogany underoos - yet they manage, year after year, to win the "Which Grados do I really wish I had" contest. If they don't come with a lumber wrap, what do they come with that makes them preferable to the much-maligned 325/325i/325is?
Maybe - and I'm just thinking out loud here - the problem isn't so much in the driver as it is in the pads. To be sure, those HP1000 drivers were different, and they're still a hot commodity, even decades later. But both these silver tanks also came in flats, not bowls. Why? Isn't it because the bowls practically give away the bass and afflict the presentation with a sicky sour tinniness? Unfortunately, Grado has made a habit of using the pads as part of its stair-step segmentation of the product line. Cheapskates get comfies. Spend a little money and you get some bowls. Spend a lot and you get the jumbos.
But should the pads be matched to a market niche or to the sound they're supposed to help sculpt? Grados, more than most headphones, are sensitive to differences in pads. If the flats emphasize the bass and restrain the HF, the bowls open up more HF (even with diminished bass). The jumbos take the HF dispersion that much further, in the name of soundstage. Their effect on bass is so pronounced, they only work with drivers tweaked to thump out as much bass as possible.
This is where the product lineup has created a euphonic mismatch. Having restricted the comfies to the bottom rungs, the 325s find themselves among a pack of Grados deemed worthy of the more open HF extension of the mid-Grados. If the 125 and 225 merit bowls, why not the 325? The answer lies in the way these headphones use their chambers to build a presentation. As the thinking goes, the SR60s have the least amount of "air support," so they get the warmth of comfies and a closer ear/driver distance. Until the latest update in the line-up, their successors - the SR80s - were the first to get the bowls. Now, you have to buy the 125s to be truly "bowl worthy." After giving the 125 and 225 bowls of their own, it must have made good marketing sense to apply that same logic to the 325s. On the other hand, the 125 and 225 are housed in plastic; the 325 comes wearing metal.
It's precisely this difference that explains why the 325 maybe should have worn flats, not high heels, to this particular ball. As occurred with the PS1 and HP-1000, the hard, metal, housing was better designed to aid quicker decay and improve speed. Unless it's designed to do otherwise, metal rings a bit more readily than wood or even plastic. Even without that ring, there's no added warmth or color to offset unimpeded HF. But the legendary metal monsters from yesteryear had a plan: They dressed in flats, which brought the ear closer to the driver and let it focus on the primary vibrations of the drivers, themselves, rather than the echoes of secondary waves after they've bounced all over the rest of the headphone apparatus.
Which leads me to suggest that 325s, heard in bowls, are not really 325s at all. The bowls were not the cushion of the old metal monsters. The only reason the HF2 comes in bowls, and the PS1000 comes in jumbos, is the warmth that comes from those mahogany panties. An argument can be made that Grado has retreated from the brilliance of the all-metal-and-flats presentation in an effort to embrace a hybrid compromise - and all so it can keep those overgrown jumbo pads. Grado wants its comfort. It wants a more polite approach. It wants that bigger soundstage. It has turned to wood as the means of offsetting the consequences of bowls and jumbos.
It was easy to see where things were going when the GS1000 was made the new Grado flagship. To get comfort and soundstage, Grado needed the jumbo G-cush megapads but it also had to tweak the bass, giving the GS1k a Westone 3-like EQ smile formed by combining thumping bass with emphasized highs. This had an effect on the trademark Grado mids, but that was the price of producing a "polite" soundstage. For many of the Grado faithful, this was the wrong direction. To this day, there are many who argue that the RS-1 was the true flagship - and remains as much. Now that the GS1k has been pushed to the side by the PS1k, it's getting dumped on by the RS1 loyalists and the PS1k upgraders.
Ironically, this is exactly the moment when a return to flats is needed, particularly by the 325 whose metal body is the closest to the HP1k of any Grados in production. There's still an arguable difference in drivers, but such a difference hardly merits making others, especially where additional differences merely widen the gap. How many people running the 325 down have heard those same cans with flats? Maybe it's time to let Harry Potter move out of from beneath the staircase. Maybe, with the right set of pads, the 325s will open a few eyes (or ears).
Has anyone here tried to couple 325s with flats? If so, what were your thoughts?
Yes, aluminum was such a bad idea, at least until the release of the PS1000 and the "baby PS1000" - the HF2. But, say the critics, we're forgetting that these cans are "hybrids" with mahogany on the front end and aluminum on the back. Apparently, aluminum is not so cold if you bring your mahogany underwear.
So one wonders, then, why the PS1 and the HP-1000 weren't the proverbial witch's t*t in a brass bra. These cans had no mahogany underoos - yet they manage, year after year, to win the "Which Grados do I really wish I had" contest. If they don't come with a lumber wrap, what do they come with that makes them preferable to the much-maligned 325/325i/325is?
Maybe - and I'm just thinking out loud here - the problem isn't so much in the driver as it is in the pads. To be sure, those HP1000 drivers were different, and they're still a hot commodity, even decades later. But both these silver tanks also came in flats, not bowls. Why? Isn't it because the bowls practically give away the bass and afflict the presentation with a sicky sour tinniness? Unfortunately, Grado has made a habit of using the pads as part of its stair-step segmentation of the product line. Cheapskates get comfies. Spend a little money and you get some bowls. Spend a lot and you get the jumbos.
But should the pads be matched to a market niche or to the sound they're supposed to help sculpt? Grados, more than most headphones, are sensitive to differences in pads. If the flats emphasize the bass and restrain the HF, the bowls open up more HF (even with diminished bass). The jumbos take the HF dispersion that much further, in the name of soundstage. Their effect on bass is so pronounced, they only work with drivers tweaked to thump out as much bass as possible.
This is where the product lineup has created a euphonic mismatch. Having restricted the comfies to the bottom rungs, the 325s find themselves among a pack of Grados deemed worthy of the more open HF extension of the mid-Grados. If the 125 and 225 merit bowls, why not the 325? The answer lies in the way these headphones use their chambers to build a presentation. As the thinking goes, the SR60s have the least amount of "air support," so they get the warmth of comfies and a closer ear/driver distance. Until the latest update in the line-up, their successors - the SR80s - were the first to get the bowls. Now, you have to buy the 125s to be truly "bowl worthy." After giving the 125 and 225 bowls of their own, it must have made good marketing sense to apply that same logic to the 325s. On the other hand, the 125 and 225 are housed in plastic; the 325 comes wearing metal.
It's precisely this difference that explains why the 325 maybe should have worn flats, not high heels, to this particular ball. As occurred with the PS1 and HP-1000, the hard, metal, housing was better designed to aid quicker decay and improve speed. Unless it's designed to do otherwise, metal rings a bit more readily than wood or even plastic. Even without that ring, there's no added warmth or color to offset unimpeded HF. But the legendary metal monsters from yesteryear had a plan: They dressed in flats, which brought the ear closer to the driver and let it focus on the primary vibrations of the drivers, themselves, rather than the echoes of secondary waves after they've bounced all over the rest of the headphone apparatus.
Which leads me to suggest that 325s, heard in bowls, are not really 325s at all. The bowls were not the cushion of the old metal monsters. The only reason the HF2 comes in bowls, and the PS1000 comes in jumbos, is the warmth that comes from those mahogany panties. An argument can be made that Grado has retreated from the brilliance of the all-metal-and-flats presentation in an effort to embrace a hybrid compromise - and all so it can keep those overgrown jumbo pads. Grado wants its comfort. It wants a more polite approach. It wants that bigger soundstage. It has turned to wood as the means of offsetting the consequences of bowls and jumbos.
It was easy to see where things were going when the GS1000 was made the new Grado flagship. To get comfort and soundstage, Grado needed the jumbo G-cush megapads but it also had to tweak the bass, giving the GS1k a Westone 3-like EQ smile formed by combining thumping bass with emphasized highs. This had an effect on the trademark Grado mids, but that was the price of producing a "polite" soundstage. For many of the Grado faithful, this was the wrong direction. To this day, there are many who argue that the RS-1 was the true flagship - and remains as much. Now that the GS1k has been pushed to the side by the PS1k, it's getting dumped on by the RS1 loyalists and the PS1k upgraders.
Ironically, this is exactly the moment when a return to flats is needed, particularly by the 325 whose metal body is the closest to the HP1k of any Grados in production. There's still an arguable difference in drivers, but such a difference hardly merits making others, especially where additional differences merely widen the gap. How many people running the 325 down have heard those same cans with flats? Maybe it's time to let Harry Potter move out of from beneath the staircase. Maybe, with the right set of pads, the 325s will open a few eyes (or ears).
Has anyone here tried to couple 325s with flats? If so, what were your thoughts?
