[FlobHobNob]

I love me my grado sr60i's. In my opionion beats cant touch em for what I listen to

 

[stacker45]

I'm waiting for a pair of PS 500,i've compared them with the RS1i last week, and found that they sound very similar in the mids and highs,but the bass goes deeper on the PS 500 wich gives them a warmer sound,i find they sound a lot like the PS 1000 exept they're much lighter,and more comfortable,they're not cheap,but i think they're worth every penny and more.

 

[dorino]

Funny, my very limited demo of the PS500 showed similar bass but less emphasis in mids/highs.

 

[Focker]

Quote:

focker it's good to see you went for brooklyns finest my friend..you can't go wrong with any of the grado range..you could close your eyes and pick any of them.. there are all good..the grado ra1 is a good choice of headphone amp.. it's made just for grado headphones.. instead of upgrading higher up the grado range..give the ra1 a try..

Thanks brother...now that I'm pretty set with headphones for a little while, I'm going to begin playing around with some amps. The Meier should be here any day (fingers crossed), and I'm sure I'll give another couple amps an audition during the process. I think one of the amps on my short list is the Little Dot MkIII. Supposedly with some tube rolling that can be a pretty great little piece of gear. I know that Amazon carries the Grado amp, so I'll check that out, as well.
 
Which Grados do you have again?

 

[Focker]

Quote:

I love me my grado sr60i's. In my opionion beats cant touch em for what I listen to

If someone listens only to club/rap music, I can see why the beats would appeal to them. But for anyone who has more eclectic taste and who values the music as a whole and not just the low end, I just can't imagine a better place to go than the Grado 60s or 80s. For under $100 USD, it's amazing how enjoyable they are. Lots of detail, organic sound, and I'm still blown away by the imaging. That's an aspect of sound reproduction that I'm really big on, but I don't often see many others discussing it. The Grados image like champs. Vocals dead center, and then instrumentation across the stage from left to right. With movies, sounds are even placed behind my head and to the side...unbelievable! I don't get anywhere near that accuracy with the lower end Ultrasones and AKGs that I have here. My Atrios IEMs do a decent enough job, and I love them overall, but they don't image like the Grados do.

 

[Gwarmi]

Quote:

If someone listens only to club/rap music, I can see why the beats would appeal to them. But for anyone who has more eclectic taste and who values the music as a whole and not just the low end, I just can't imagine a better place to go than the Grado 60s or 80s. For under $100 USD, it's amazing how enjoyable they are. Lots of detail, organic sound, and I'm still blown away by the imaging. That's an aspect of sound reproduction that I'm really big on, but I don't often see many others discussing it. The Grados image like champs. Vocals dead center, and then instrumentation across the stage from left to right. With movies, sounds are even placed behind my head and to the side...unbelievable! I don't get anywhere near that accuracy with the lower end Ultrasones and AKGs that I have here. My Atrios IEMs do a decent enough job, and I love them overall, but they don't image like the Grados do.

 
 It's one of the Head-Fi great myths - you'll see countless references to the AT-M50 or HD25-II at how a completely
 open SR80i on L-cush somehow falls short to those two cans in terms of imaging and sound stage.
 
 It just makes me laugh every time a really spacious track comes on and you can sense the sonic image literally
 extend an inch or two outside of your skull - these cans have no sound stage eh?
 
 It's just funny to see an ardent few continually perpetuate this myth.
 

 

[eltocliousus]

Had my SR60s for a few days now and.. maybe it's the fact that my right ear is currently blocked (and has been for a few months now, getting it fixed tomorrow at the hospital hopefully) but the Grados sound quite fantastic, much better than my modded Fostex and HE-300s, even in electronic music.
 
With my right ear being blocked I can not hear any soundstage on any of my headphones so the Grados sounding fantastic may change in the coming days but wow, I'm loving these at the minute, even if I did pay the ludicrous European price for them 

.

 

[Focker]

Quote:

 
 It's one of the Head-Fi great myths - you'll see countless references to the AT-M50 or HD25-II at how a completely
 open SR80i on L-cush somehow falls short to those two cans in terms of imaging and sound stage.
 
 It just makes me laugh every time a really spacious track comes on and you can sense the sonic image literally
 extend an inch or two outside of your skull - these cans have no sound stage eh?
 
 It's just funny to see an ardent few continually perpetuate this myth.
 

I am starting to think that there are a lot of people on this site who just prefer sound that is "unnatural". I can relate to those who like a great big sound stage, cause that's how my main speakers are...they're known for creating that sort of effect in the room. But I read all sorts of posts where people want this booming, massively dynamic bass and some huge sound stage that sounds like instruments are 50 feet apart or whatever. I just don't really care for that, and although I don't want to generalize, it seems to me that those who really connect with Grados are the ones who have diverse music tastes and prefer a more natural presentation. I started watching this movie on my Kindle Fire last night with the 325s and there was a scene where you could hear a motorcycle off in the distance...it was wayyyy off to the rear left and behind me. As it came onto the screen and got closer, the imaging on the Grados allowed the sound to move right along with it, aroud the left side, then toward the left front, and then right in front of you. All the while the intensity of both the motorcyle AND the impact of the tires on the gravel became louder and more distinct. I tried the same track on my AKG minis and Ultrasone HFI 15gs and it just wasn't the same at all. I probably should have used the 80s to be a more fair comparison, but since the 80s are the phones I first noticed this quality on, I'm sure it would have been a very similar experience.
 

 

[Focker]

Quote:

Had my SR60s for a few days now and.. maybe it's the fact that my right ear is currently blocked (and has been for a few months now, getting it fixed tomorrow at the hospital hopefully) but the Grados sound quite fantastic, much better than my modded Fostex and HE-300s, even in electronic music.
 
With my right ear being blocked I can not hear any soundstage on any of my headphones so the Grados sounding fantastic may change in the coming days but wow, I'm loving these at the minute, even if I did pay the ludicrous European price for them 

.

Dang man, I hope you get that ear fixed!

 

[eltocliousus]

Quote:

Dang man, I hope you get that ear fixed!

 
It's a polyp in my right ear blocking the ear canal, going to have it removed (hopefully) in 20 minutes now, can't wait to experience my new headphones when I can hear.

 

[detoxguy]

As much as I love Grado headphones I personally would skip the RA1. The wood and aesthetics are ok but the cost performance ratio isn't the best by far. Little Dot has a good amp for Grados but it isn't any of their OTL amps which don't pair terribly well with low impedance headphones but the LD1+ is a great budget choice and I quite enjoy them with my RS1is. 
 
Dependant on budget I would simply skip over all the intermediate steps and just contact Dr. Peppard and get the Ear+ HD.

 

[Focker]

Quote:

As much as I love Grado headphones I personally would skip the RA1. The wood and aesthetics are ok but the cost performance ratio isn't the best by far. Little Dot has a good amp for Grados but it isn't any of their OTL amps which don't pair terribly well with low impedance headphones but the LD1+ is a great budget choice and I quite enjoy them with my RS1is. 
 
Dependant on budget I would simply skip over all the intermediate steps and just contact Dr. Peppard and get the Ear+ HD.

I am always look for a reason to be a customer of Dr P again...my plan right now is to play with the Meier as my main amp and then toy around with some other cheapos in the meantime for fun. Actually, a guy I bought my tube DAC from a few years ago is playing around with some plans for a chip amp based headphone amp (battery powered) so I'm interested to see what the mad scientist comes up with. I'm hoping the Meier ends up being a great match for my Grados and my DT880s, though.

 

[eltocliousus]

I didn't get the polyp removed just yet Focker (hopefully next Monday) but I did have all the debris and discharge vacuumed from my ear and for the half an hour it stayed unblocked I listened to my headphones, the Grados do seem a little tinny with my ear unblocked but I still love them, I see what everyone means by in your face now though as the soundstage is much more prominent on the HE-300s/Koss.
 

 

[Focker]

Quote:

I didn't get the polyp removed just yet Focker (hopefully next Monday) but I did have all the debris and discharge vacuumed from my ear and for the half an hour it stayed unblocked I listened to my headphones, the Grados do seem a little tinny with my ear unblocked but I still love them, I see what everyone means by in your face now though as the soundstage is much more prominent on the HE-300s/Koss.
 

So did you get the HE-300s after the whole episode with the HE-6s? That would actually be pretty funny if you only liked the Grados because you had a bum ear lol....but there's nothing wrong with preferring different stuff than others...that's one of the things that drives me crazy is when people become so defensive when someone doesn't like the same things. I think that's what makes the hobby great! Everyone can find what sounds best to their ears. Glad your ear is moving in the right direction, though...hopefully you'll get that polyp out of there next week.

 

[eltocliousus]

 
Quote:

So did you get the HE-300s after the whole episode with the HE-6s? That would actually be pretty funny if you only liked the Grados because you had a bum ear lol....but there's nothing wrong with preferring different stuff than others...that's one of the things that drives me crazy is when people become so defensive when someone doesn't like the same things. I think that's what makes the hobby great! Everyone can find what sounds best to their ears. Glad your ear is moving in the right direction, though...hopefully you'll get that polyp out of there next week.

Hopefully so, thankyou for the concern.
I did re-order the 300s once I sold the HE-6s (HiFiMAN gave me the go ahead to keep them, very nice of them to do so), I really like them but the cable is a little cumbersome and long.
I still find myself listening to the Grados much more than my others, it would be a shame to have them lose their touch once my ear is back to health, but they'll still be used constantly for outdoor listening when I'm not feeling my Koss, they definitely look great, I feel much less self-concious wearing the Grados (even with the sound leakage) than the Koss.