[YtseJamer]

So.... Is the Hemp gonna be a limited release? Do i need to buy a second backup pair? I'm not sure i can live without them

I'm tempted to buy another pair for the office (after Covid) because they are still on sale in Canada. ($549 instead of $599)

I'm also wondering if the Hemp will be a limited release. In my opinion, this would be a really stupid move by Grado to remove this product from the market eventually after all the praise that they have received so far.

 

[audiobomber]

It is no headphone amp, it is a speaker amp. I put the grados on via a speaker control box, see https://www.btechavmounts.com/product-range/products/bt911 . It sounds wonderful, better than every headphone amp I have heard so far and has less noise/hum.

It is not an amp of any sort, it is simply a speaker switch. There is no spec for the headphone outlet in the link. I strongly suspect it is a high impedance device as used in many integrated amps and AVR's, where a resistor is used to drop the power. These are far from zero impedance, usually around 30 ohms. If correct, the lack of proper damping factor would invalidate your results for me.

PS No properly designed headphone amp should have any noticeable noise or hum. I have half a dozen in-house and even the cheapest is dead quiet.

 

[VinMAC]

It is not an amp of any sort, it is simply a speaker switch. There is no spec for the headphone outlet in the link. I strongly suspect it is a high impedance device as used in many integrated amps and AVR's, where a resistor is used to drop the power. These are far from zero impedance, usually around 30 ohms. If correct, the lack of proper damping factor would invalidate your results for me.

PS No properly designed headphone amp should have any noticeable noise or hum. I have half a dozen in-house and even the cheapest is dead quiet.

I did not claim that the Speaker Control Box is an amplifier. It is merely connected to the 8 ohm tap of the tube amplifier's speaker terminals.

That the headphone output on the control box is high impedance is pure speculation. There is nothing in the manual about this. I can only say that the sound is identical to when I would connect the headphones directly to the speaker terminals only a bit less dynamic.

As a comparison I have the Grado RA1 and the high quality headphone outputs from the MCD500 and my vintagereceiver Harman Kardon 630. None of these options sound nearly as detailed and spatial as well as dynamic as via the speaker connections of the McIntosh MC225 tube amplifier and via the Speaker Control Box, which by the way I bought at a high end retailer.

If all your tube (not SS!) headphone amps are absolutely low noise then congratulations! I have yet to hear a single tube amp that is absolutely silent at idle at least not McIntosh, Leben, Unison, Jadis, Manley and Audio Research. I guess those were the bad amps then.

 

[carboncopy]

I did not claim that the Speaker Control Box is an amplifier. It is merely connected to the 8 ohm tap of the tube amplifier's speaker terminals.

That the headphone output on the control box is high impedance is pure speculation. There is nothing in the manual about this. I can only say that the sound is identical to when I would connect the headphones directly to the speaker terminals only a bit less dynamic.

As a comparison I have the Grado RA1 and the high quality headphone outputs from the MCD500 and my vintagereceiver Harman Kardon 630. None of these options sound nearly as detailed and spatial as well as dynamic as via the speaker connections of the McIntosh MC225 tube amplifier and via the Speaker Control Box, which by the way I bought at a high end retailer.

If all your tube (not SS!) headphone amps are absolutely low noise then congratulations! I have yet to hear a single tube amp that is absolutely silent at idle at least not McIntosh, Leben, Unison, Jadis, Manley and Audio Research. I guess those were the bad amps then.

The switch box probably has a resistor divider, therefore it’s output impedance is higher. Other option would be a transformer. That could provide impedance matching, but usually cost much more.

As for dead silent tube amp (with Grado) I know one: the Tor audio balanced.

 

[chaosMonkey]

Grado 420 order in. Something to look forward to, as the winter months wear on. Also... y'all are a bad influence.

And now I learn there's controversy around hemp themed emojis. So very funny.

Being blessed to call the The Green Mountain State home, I've witnessed the rise and fall of a number of hemp farms. Knock on wood the industry will settle down in the years ahead. Vermont farmer's could definitely use another cash crop, and hemp wood is a fascinating product.

The Hemp cachet would multiplied manyfold, I think, if the hemp came from Vermont. Clan Grado, are ya listening?

 

[Damien Grief]

I'm also wondering if the Hemp will be a limited release. In my opinion, this would be a really stupid move by Grado to remove this product from the market eventually after all the praise that they have received so far.

From what I've read, Grado has wanted to do Hemp headphones for a while. They'll eventually stop selling the Hemps, but I don't think it'll be the last Hemp-based headphone we see released from Grado. I think they'll start working the wood into their standard line (or make a new hemp-based line) eventually.

 

[knopi]

It would be shame for Hemp, price is fair and available for most, and from impressions it seems like one of the most popular Grado hp right now.
Is there some shop in europe where I can buy Hemp?

 

[henriks]

Danish shop https://www.lydspecialisten.dk/prod...881-grado-the-hemp-headphone-limited-edition/

 

[emorrison33]

https://www.headfonia.com/grado-gt220-review/

I checked out Grado's first TWS.

I like them. I have quite a few IEM's/earbuds (including the Sennheiser Momentum TWS), and the Grado's are the best sounding, for my preferences. Maybe a little less bass, but I'm not complaining.

 

[god-bluff]

It would be shame for Hemp, price is fair and available for most, and from impressions it seems like one of the most popular Grado hp right now.
Is there some shop in europe where I can buy Hemp?

I bet the sales are a tiny fraction of the SR60/80e. These are available in most HiFi shops in the UK at least and of course, judging by the number of (positive), reviews, sold in pretty large numbers on Amazon etc. These are a lot of buyers idea of 'high end' headphones and rightly so. £80-£100 is a lot to spend on non Bluetooth headphones for most normal people, Beats excepted

The hemp is a niche product. The lower SR series is Grado's bread and butter; don't confuse this site with the rest of the Big wide world

 

[Okrelayer]

I’ve had fun reading all of your posts while waiting for my SR80e’s to come in the mail, so i thought i would share my two hour impressions/review on them!

In a year where were we can’t go to live concerts, Grado brings the concert to me:

I’ve heard a lot about the “Grado sound.” So I went in wondering what the heck this Grado sound was. On my first listen i could tell that these sounded very authentic, but brighter. To my ears it didn’t sound wrong, just brighter than what I usually hear. But usually brighter headphones sound artificial or something, these still sound “right” to my ears. So something weird was happening here. But i was reminded of two things i heard when researching these headphones.

One guy on YouTube said he went to a live recording at a church. And in the lobby they had multiple high end headphones to hear what was just recorded. On the table was the SR80 and he said to him it sounded most like what he heard in the church.

Another reviewer said that “Grados sound like live music. No graph, mic measurement, waterfall plot I've seen shows what live music sounds like. “

So i started listening to bands I had seen live

- Radiohead
- Vampire weekend
- Porcupine tree
- Opeth
- Tool

Bingo it hit me. These headphones were bringing me back to how i felt at these shows. They had a similar sonic profile. These are presented the way music is heard live, not in the studio. It has an airiness to the sound that you hear in a Smoke filled venue, an energy that you get from live performances. They can be a little fatiguing to the ear(as are concerts actually.) but they are like espresso- a shot in the arm of raw wild energy. They are an absolute perfect compliment to my AKG K371 which presents music how you would hear it on proper loudspeakers in a room.

But in a year where we don’t have live concerts I’ve begun to crave that feeling, Grado brings me closer to that place.

 

[emorrison33]

I'm tempted to buy another pair for the office (after Covid) because they are still on sale in Canada. ($549 instead of $599)

I was thinking of buying another pair for the office as well. But the "logo" on the side of the cups would not go over well. I could cover up the leaf with a sticker or something, but it's not that important. I still have my RS2e's I can use in the office. I'll leave the Hemps at home.

 

[signine]

Y’all, I just wanted you to know that I bought a pair of Hemps and created an account after reading the last few dozen pages of this thread.

Thanks so much for insight, they show up tomorrow.

 

[Bernard23]

I was thinking of buying another pair for the office as well. But the "logo" on the side of the cups would not go over well. I could cover up the leaf with a sticker or something, but it's not that important. I still have my RS2e's I can use in the office. I'll leave the Hemps at home.

Here in Europe, well the UK anyway, hemp doesn't have quite the same stigma, not that you'd walk into the office wearing a cannabis T shirt, but the majority here wouldn't notice.

 

[Joaquin Dinero]

I was thinking of buying another pair for the office as well. But the "logo" on the side of the cups would not go over well. I could cover up the leaf with a sticker or something, but it's not that important. I still have my RS2e's I can use in the office. I'll leave the Hemps at home.

There was someone awhile back in the thread who special ordered a pair with the Hemp buttons detached from the cups. In cognito.