orkney
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2004
- Posts
- 1,571
- Likes
- 141
Hi all,
I'm a novice here and am well aware of the skills and the responsibilities of the key reviewers on this site, who give a tremendous amount of their time and expertise on our behalf. I have few skills and little expertise but last week I picked up a set of the Moon Audio recabled RS-2s and since I haven't seen much about these on the web, I thought I'd post some brief and inconclusive impressions. Please take these with all kinds of salt.
Flash backwards: I help to run a film mastering lab and have been looking for a set of phones for a particular animation project. These need to have some specific sonic qualities: they must be revealing/transparent. They must do justice to a complicated vocal track. They must have a full rich sound and look to complement the time-frame of the film/animation since they will function as props in the project.
I started looking at Grados and settled on the RS-1, but when they arrived I quickly found that their signature was both a little bright and light to serve as mastering and listening tools for this project. They had the look, the speed -- but they wouldn't do. Not this time, at least.
Then I read a bit about the RS-2s. As usual, the story wasn't straightforward. They were fuller than their brothers. They were leaner. They were brighter. They were softer. They were as good, but different. They were a whole lot worse. Or better. I waited for a pair to come up. Waited. Waited.
Then I came across a pair of the Moon Audio recables. Having never tried a recabled set of HPs and being neutral as to the effects of high-end and high-priced cables, I did a little research. I learned that Moon has the recabling done at the Grado factory and that the Silver Dragon is meant to have some of the benefits of silver (speed, clarity) without the brightness. So I bit.
They arrived on the weekend and having broken them in for 40 hours or so I did a little listening. My playlist:
Tom Waits (Blue Valentines, Mule Variations)
Alison Krauss (tracks from Live)
Bach Cello concertos and guitar transcription of same
Hendrix remastered (Red House and Hey Joe)
Joni Mitchell (tracks from Blue)
Bad Religion (assorted tracks)
Nirvana (various bootlegs)
Theo. Monk (Alone)
Upstream sources included a Rega Saturn and iMod; amps were Meier Opera, Porta Corda and SXH1). HPs are Denon D5000s, Custom Beyer DT880 600s, RS-1s, etc.
My brief impressions: these have a VERY different sound siggy to the stock RS-1s I owned. They're smooth, smooth, smooth. No treble fatigue and no glare or overhang in the high treble. Joni sounded clear and unstrained on the top notes; Hendrix's leading edges came through sharp and fast without any of the buzzsaw effect that "hot" trebles add.
They're quick. Not the superspeed attack and decay of their brothers but very close and somehow more plausible, at least to my ears. The long, virtuoso intro to The Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn on the Alison Krauss Live disc was incredibly clean, live and focused. Similarly the bowing and the body resonance on the Bach cello. Great rosin, great wood. Not the wide and fluid presentation of the DT-880 600s, but those are in a league of their own with this material.
Soundstage. I need to listen more. Certainly narrower and more "front of head" than either the Denons or Beyers and seemingly a bit narrower than the RS-1s but, again, IMO, more natural-sounding.
Mids. Superb. Genuinely superb. Clean and natural sound, less pronounced than the Denons and less recessed than the Beyers. I think these cans shine here and even with quite complex orchaestral music (Rutter's Requiem).
Bass. I think I need to give this time. Seemingly less deep and more one-note than either the Beyers and certainly than the Denons. Apparently this improves along with the cable. On some tracks, the bass notes seem to be VERY close to my ears, if that makes sense.
Speech. These are excellent. Genuinely, decisively excellent. Easily good enough for their intended use.
Other. I find these very comfy. They seem a little lighter than the 1s and with the 414 or bowls they were fine, though I prefer the modded 414s. Fit and finish on this set excellent; dark and matched except for a bit of VERY noticably unsanded wood on the inside of one earcup. Otherwise, cosmetically these are far and away the best Grado woodies I've seen, including the 2 "vintage" models I've had in house.
Driving. Superb with the Opera, again with the Perreaux and with the 5.5 iPod Standard (unamped) very very good. Straight from the iPod these are leagues ahead of any of the phones I own. In fact, and this is heresy, if I had begun my head-fi journey with this combo, I might -- MIGHT -- have stopped right there.
End. I'm very taken with these cans. The cable is, at 5 ft, a little short for my needs and I expect I'll be after an extension at some point. I need to listen more to these and do a more detailed comparo, but they seem to fit my needs and, indeed, exceed them. Perhaps worth a closer look for those looking aty the Grado line. I stress that I haven't hard the unmodded RS-2s beside these -- maybe I'd love those too!
hope this is of some use and best,
o
I'm a novice here and am well aware of the skills and the responsibilities of the key reviewers on this site, who give a tremendous amount of their time and expertise on our behalf. I have few skills and little expertise but last week I picked up a set of the Moon Audio recabled RS-2s and since I haven't seen much about these on the web, I thought I'd post some brief and inconclusive impressions. Please take these with all kinds of salt.
Flash backwards: I help to run a film mastering lab and have been looking for a set of phones for a particular animation project. These need to have some specific sonic qualities: they must be revealing/transparent. They must do justice to a complicated vocal track. They must have a full rich sound and look to complement the time-frame of the film/animation since they will function as props in the project.
I started looking at Grados and settled on the RS-1, but when they arrived I quickly found that their signature was both a little bright and light to serve as mastering and listening tools for this project. They had the look, the speed -- but they wouldn't do. Not this time, at least.
Then I read a bit about the RS-2s. As usual, the story wasn't straightforward. They were fuller than their brothers. They were leaner. They were brighter. They were softer. They were as good, but different. They were a whole lot worse. Or better. I waited for a pair to come up. Waited. Waited.
Then I came across a pair of the Moon Audio recables. Having never tried a recabled set of HPs and being neutral as to the effects of high-end and high-priced cables, I did a little research. I learned that Moon has the recabling done at the Grado factory and that the Silver Dragon is meant to have some of the benefits of silver (speed, clarity) without the brightness. So I bit.
They arrived on the weekend and having broken them in for 40 hours or so I did a little listening. My playlist:
Tom Waits (Blue Valentines, Mule Variations)
Alison Krauss (tracks from Live)
Bach Cello concertos and guitar transcription of same
Hendrix remastered (Red House and Hey Joe)
Joni Mitchell (tracks from Blue)
Bad Religion (assorted tracks)
Nirvana (various bootlegs)
Theo. Monk (Alone)
Upstream sources included a Rega Saturn and iMod; amps were Meier Opera, Porta Corda and SXH1). HPs are Denon D5000s, Custom Beyer DT880 600s, RS-1s, etc.
My brief impressions: these have a VERY different sound siggy to the stock RS-1s I owned. They're smooth, smooth, smooth. No treble fatigue and no glare or overhang in the high treble. Joni sounded clear and unstrained on the top notes; Hendrix's leading edges came through sharp and fast without any of the buzzsaw effect that "hot" trebles add.
They're quick. Not the superspeed attack and decay of their brothers but very close and somehow more plausible, at least to my ears. The long, virtuoso intro to The Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn on the Alison Krauss Live disc was incredibly clean, live and focused. Similarly the bowing and the body resonance on the Bach cello. Great rosin, great wood. Not the wide and fluid presentation of the DT-880 600s, but those are in a league of their own with this material.
Soundstage. I need to listen more. Certainly narrower and more "front of head" than either the Denons or Beyers and seemingly a bit narrower than the RS-1s but, again, IMO, more natural-sounding.
Mids. Superb. Genuinely superb. Clean and natural sound, less pronounced than the Denons and less recessed than the Beyers. I think these cans shine here and even with quite complex orchaestral music (Rutter's Requiem).
Bass. I think I need to give this time. Seemingly less deep and more one-note than either the Beyers and certainly than the Denons. Apparently this improves along with the cable. On some tracks, the bass notes seem to be VERY close to my ears, if that makes sense.
Speech. These are excellent. Genuinely, decisively excellent. Easily good enough for their intended use.
Other. I find these very comfy. They seem a little lighter than the 1s and with the 414 or bowls they were fine, though I prefer the modded 414s. Fit and finish on this set excellent; dark and matched except for a bit of VERY noticably unsanded wood on the inside of one earcup. Otherwise, cosmetically these are far and away the best Grado woodies I've seen, including the 2 "vintage" models I've had in house.
Driving. Superb with the Opera, again with the Perreaux and with the 5.5 iPod Standard (unamped) very very good. Straight from the iPod these are leagues ahead of any of the phones I own. In fact, and this is heresy, if I had begun my head-fi journey with this combo, I might -- MIGHT -- have stopped right there.
End. I'm very taken with these cans. The cable is, at 5 ft, a little short for my needs and I expect I'll be after an extension at some point. I need to listen more to these and do a more detailed comparo, but they seem to fit my needs and, indeed, exceed them. Perhaps worth a closer look for those looking aty the Grado line. I stress that I haven't hard the unmodded RS-2s beside these -- maybe I'd love those too!
hope this is of some use and best,
o
