Hello
I hope this is right expression in title : ). Well I was looking to buy these, read some great reviews here and they have nice price..
But.. I listen to music 95% in bus traveling to work (about 2 hours a day - iPod classic latest gen.) and on work (laptop). So you can guess there is people around me in both places. I know these grados are 'open' and just want to check with you guys and girls are these phones gonna make people look and point fingers at me? Its not like I am gonna do 100% of volume at all but just want to check if there is any isolation on these?Maybe recommend me something similar but 'closed'?
My main genres are trip-hop,chillout, jazz and all other jazzy stuff.. (and there is always one album of Rammstein around :d )
So.. give me your toughts
ty.
The sound leakage isn't really that big of an issue, especially with the smaller Grados. The close ear/driver distance of everything below the GS1000 makes it pretty easy to listen to your music without disturbing others. I can listen to my cans in the living room while everyone is watching TV and nobody says anything. If I wear them to bed, on the other hand, my wife speaks up because she's a light sleeper and anything will startle her awake.
The sound leakage will especially not be an issue on the bus. Compared to the ambient sound of the motor, gears, wheels and traffic, you'd be surprised at how heavy the sound floor is. Your headphones would hardly be an offender there. You will, however, lose bass as the low rumble cancels out what your drivers are producing. I had this happen to me on a family trip. I could hear the HF just fine, but the bass cut out badly. I found it so annoying, once I realized what was going on, that I invested in IEMs.
Any IEM with a good fit will give you full bass, as long as you have a good deal. You will, however, have to get used to having something jammed into your ear canals. It took me a little while to get used to it but once I did, I found the isolation of even the cheapest IEMs to be amazing. Soundwize, you get better sound form multi-drivered earphones (which you can read about at greater length in the portable earphones area). Some people love the single-drivered Etymotics ER4P. I, personally, hated the ergonomics of the Etymotics, with its popcicle sticks that could never get much bass and either popped out or had to be jammed in pretty far. They're the only IEMs I've owned that had serious issues with microphonics.
One of the fab favorites among IEMs is the SE530 (lush mids), but I found it too uninvolving and weirdly steely for my tastes. I preferred the Triple Fi 10 Pro (TF10) and the UM3X. For modestly-priced IEMs, I was very much impressed with the single-driver Phonak Audeo PFE, which comes with two filters, one for an Etymotics-style sparking presentation and a darker one for better bass (I preferred the darker one; I'm not a basshead, but a little bass is not a bad thing).
For an office environment, you can easily get away with a smaller Grado (anything below the GS1000). You'd have to have an extremely quiet office environment for anyone to really hear anything. I wear Grados to the gym. I wear them on walks. I wear them at doctors' offices. The only "looks" I get are from people who are used to seeing people sport earphones, not full-sized headphones. The smaller Grados have a pretty low profile, but in a world where the headphone has been commonly replaced by something that goes in the ear, not on it, you'll get some "looks."
Whether that's a big deal will depend on how much you care. I don't. I'd rather have the good sound. But that's me. I would, however, draw the line at the K701 and the HD800s I keep at home. Those two headphones seem more like helmets.
