The idea of it being an epic failure - as a speculation only, from those who haven't heard it and are (justifiably) anxious about the price and their own vulnerability to temptation - doesn't make sense. There is no difference between this and any other flagship high-end product introduction - expect it to be expensive, incur grumbling about price (yes the law of diminishing returns always applies, but there are loopholes to that law), "how can it be worth it", toys for rich people and obsessed wannabes, statements about musicality being available without deep debt. But, Grado seems to invite lots of mixed emotions and polarizing opinions - similar to, though for very different reasons, the Linn/Naim vs everyone else feud of many years ago. Grado is ancient (is there any precedent for an audiophile company passed down across three generations, like a dry cleaner that started with someone's enterprise grandpa from the old country?); they make no pretense aimed at validating the wealthy connoisseur mentality; they are regular guys working out of a graffiti-splashed "townhouse" (an old brownstone between Chinese grocery/bodega hybrids in a grim and grey Brooklyn neighborhood); the peeps who assemble most of your gear are regular working stiffs, semi-urban moms and dads; they keep a certain Luddite air about them, ironic considering that they make cheap, fun utilitarian stuff as enthusiastically as they make and sell luxury-priced instruments like these; they're completely approachable people; for all their expertise, they make no gesture toward mystical mathematics, dominion over particles, fields and special arrangements with the laws of nature, and BDMAO (Big Dumb Mysterious Audio Objects, to abuse a science fiction trope) - after giving you basic specs, they mostly fall back on their belief in musicality, rather than positivistic adherence to electrical and acoustical physics. They don't advertise or give discounts, and as expensive as their high-end is, it is far LESS bloated than the high-end of most high-end product lines, even to the point of going long periods without raising prices, or, until this PS2000e, bumping up the prices of new models much above the last one. They have a simpatico with Schiit, who are high-end veterans now making basic to no-compromise mostly-headphone components at a (truly made-in-the-USA) fraction of what comparable-quality gear is marked up to (download the Kindle of "Schiit Happens", a funny, self-deprecating account of their experience as a start-up figuring it out as they went along - Schiit love to humorously skewer high-end engineering and marketing pretensions). Now, about the PS2000e. It is never easy for a regular person to just "drop" 2700 bucks on a pleasure item. But, Grado has a right to tinker and offer up a gadget they believe is distinct, successfully designed and manufactured, and set a price for it. And they are on the modest end of the connoisseur-audio price points, even here. The issue isn't whether Grado are out of line charging big bucks for headphones, since there has been an overpriced high-end industry for a long time, and all of us here know that; the issue is, are they creating something that belongs in the no-compromise niche of the market - if you want to make the point that NO component is worth what would feed a family of x for y months, or pay off a couple of credit lines. But that's a silly moralistic point of view. People can make special things and sell them if they want to, and people are free to buy them, using their own budget and conscience. Don't approve? Don't buy it. As to whether it is worth it, judged by the quality of its competition, and the rest of the Grado product line: I'm stunned by the music coming out of these things. And they are different from all other high-end models of Grado, objectively/subjectively (since my ears and discrimination and pleasure-sensations are the tools of objective judgment). I am the kind of listener Grado would hope for, since their products have always grabbed me as producing musical truth where it counts - I probably hear kind of like they do. I can't see any of their competition being as good, or, in the bigger scope of discriminating listeners, outclassing these cans. There are many listeners who use the same kind of language to indicate the same kind of experience when listening to Grado phones - there is a substantial consensus, just as there is about one in seven on Amazon who (actually) listen to Best-Buy IEMS and gaming phones and say Grado SUCKS, no bass, one star. But the consensus is large enough to confidently support the conclusion that Grado make accurate, appropriately priced transducers, in the context of this particular market, and that they are, by a function of elementary arithmetic, less expensive than many or of the majority of items in the same market niche. And, as an experienced audio guy, I can say that these things really rock, to a degree that justifies their existence, and, relatively, their cost. Different, and yummy.
