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A Gradophile indeed! haha you are pitching the phones quite well Chris. I'm not sure if this is the case for the sr225/325 but i'm currently auditioning a pair of sr125 and the "soundstage" is nill to none. I feel as if im standing in a whirlwind of musical notes. My Dt770s on the other hand, seem to
present the music to me rather than throwing me in it. Maybe it's something I have to get used to with Grados...
Also, can you explain your statement here. "treble is forcefully silky, which may cause some purists to dismiss." I'm relatively new to audiophile terms and dont quite understand this. I would like to understand any and all "flaws" before purchase. Thanks again!
Haha my years of Grado listening experience tend to show in my posts. The truth is I love ALL headphones and I could freely swap between anything. Grados honestly are just the most inexpensive while giving me an audiophile approved sound. The buy-in price is very cheap as well as the supporting hardware to use them properly. For example the average high end Grado setup is probably 1/3rd of the AKG K701 setup. If somebody were to drop off a DT880 by surprise at my door, I probably wouldn't post as much about them anymore and switch sides
Oh no all Grados more or less sound the same in term of general tone. I don't encourage people who don't like the lower end models to buy into them. It's like somebody who likes pianos buying more expensive electric guitars lol. I completely agree with your statement and I understand it's one of the limitations of the design. Don't force yourself to like them because of the immense noteriety surrounding them, they're just headphones lol.
The Sennheiser HD650 sounds very smooth. This "smoothness" is the frequency spectrum being made to sound that way. From a listening standpoint, this sound very lovely. From an analytical standpoint, it's not as raw. Either way it sound better than the HD600 if you just use your ears, but the HD600 will sound more raw. The smoothness is called "Sennheiser veil". This doesn't exist in many of their headphones so it's a case by case situation. For example the HD800, HD600, HD580, along a few others do not have this. Now there are ways to make it less raw via amps and cables and the like, but honestly it's not a big deal. Some people like it, some people don't just like anything else in the world. Again, the veil might not even make itself very obvious, I actually liked the HD650, I just didn't feel it was worth an extra 150 dollars to me at that point in time. What you get in exchange for this veil is a very warm midrange, the bass is upped by about 15 percent, and the treble is rolled off. It'll play the high end well, it'll just mask the piercing highs to be more pleasing to the ear.
The 650 is a polar opposite of the SR-325, if you didn't like the 125, maybe it's worth looking at this option then.
Back in the day when I started using Head-Fi, it was Grado RS-1, AKG K701, Sennie HD650, and Beyer DT880, in terms of king of the hill. Then you had your exotic stuff that not a lot of people got into back then like the Audio Technica and Denon people but people swore by those and bought multiples of those because of how much they loved them.
I liked the DT880, and the RS-1 just because I prefer a very meaty midrange followed by bright treble. The DT880 is analytical which sacrifices low end bass to present you a very accurate midrange and treble. The RS-1 is a Grado.