LaBrosse
New Head-Fier
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- Oct 7, 2009
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I find the left cup on my Grado SR60i's sliding down abit after use. Any way to increase the friction?
I find the left cup on my Grado SR60i's sliding down abit after use. Any way to increase the friction?
Here's the nature of the problem.
Joseph Grado's now-legendary PS1 didn't have rod locks. It used plastic rod holders and rubber bushings to hold the gimbal rods in place. It's the same basic design you'll find on all Grados - high to low.
The lone exception is the German-made HP1000, which featured an all-aluminum body, thick aluminum rods and aluminum rod holders. I've never worn this headphone but I'm told it's notoriously heavy. The Germans were smart enough to use thumb screws to hold the rods in place.
When John Grado copied the design of the PS1, to make a mahogany version called the PS1, he went back to the simple plastic rod holders and screw-free design of the PS1.
The cups may have changed sizes on the GS1000 but the architecture of the headband stayed pretty much the same. The rodholders remained plastic, with no HP1000-style thumbscrews.
When the mushroom tops went aluminum in the PS1000, the additional weight of these aluminum shells weren't considered enough of a problem to merit an upgrade from the same plastic rod holders sans thumbscrews.
Having owned all of these headphones - with the exception of the PS1 and the HP1000 - I'm convinced that the Grado rod holder assembly is just not up to the challenge of handling all that weight. I've owned all of the current-design aluminum Grados: the SR325, the HF2 and the PS1000. I didn't keep my HF2 long enough to have a problem with the gimbal rod, but both the SR325 and the PS1000 had trouble handling their weight. The simple, plastic rod-and-bushings design couldn't prevent "slippage."
This is the Grado rod holder.
Here are the guts of the plastic rod holder.
This is how the bushings fit into the assembly.
This is what the whole thing looks like when you add the C-Clamp to the picture.
The bushings simply add a little rubbery friction to hold the gimbal rods in place. On the upside, you can move and adjust the headbands easily.
On the downside, two little pieces of rubber may have trouble holding the cups upward. With all of my aluminums - except for the HF2 - I have experienced slippage issues. The pair of rubber bushings simply weren't enough to handle the job.
The most commonly suggested solution has been to buy and add shaft locks, like these.
These SR325s are similarly outfitted with shaft locks.
There is an entire thread devoted to modding the rod holder to introduce thumbscrews.
What type of grommets (I think that's what they're called) did you use to hold the speaker wires to the cans?
you just bumped a really old post. that guy isn't even on head fi anymore.. what exactly are you asking? Inside the cups, there is a zip tie wrapped around the cable, with some slack to hold it in place
you can't see them there, but all i used was a zip tie around the cable to hold them in place.