SomeGuyDude
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2012
- Posts
- 7,595
- Likes
- 3,423
Having been a previous Grado hater I think I can explain.Why is there so much hate for Grado products? I went on a discord a couple months ago and saw a ton of hate for just even the mention of Grado. I just went into another audiophile discord and the same thing happened. I don't quite get it
A lot of younger (and newer) enthusiasts in headphones come in with expectations on bass. We listen to a lot of bassy music, stuff that benefits from that kind of "subwoofer effect" out of our headphones. The first time you hear a Grado it's a shock to the ears because they have that particular sound, especially the more treble-heavy models. They sound like absolute garbage even if you think Beats and Sony are bass cannons because they're wayyy on the other side of things. I absolutely despised the first set of Grado I heard.
On top of THAT, you get dipshits on YouTube who talk about how they use "the same drivers for everything" (blatantly misunderstanding reality) so people just parrot that and go "oh pfft Grado is just trebly garbage and they're hucksters who overcharge." I avoided Grado for years until I heard the RS2i and decided there was something to them, and with the Hemp I'm so effing happy to have finally taken the plunge.
Grado is such a singular brand in that they approach headphones completely different from everyone else both in how they make them and how they tune them that they almost turn into the Crossfit of headphones. Some people think they're the greatest ever and will sing their praises whenever possible, and other people think the first group is a bunch of morons and start to avoid the brand solely out of annoyance.
tl;dr Grado haters just don't know better