[Jubei]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bilavideo /img/forum/go_quote.gif I disagree with the idea that Grados don't need amping. I think that's based on a common misperception, one that leads people to dismiss Grados as being overly bright. I've lost count of how many times non-Grado people have criticized the Grados as being too aggressive, even harsh, to the point that they could not listen to them for more than a few minutes. That's because these people are used to cans that were darker, cans that valued the bass and had rolled-off highs allowing them to crank the cans up. Cranked up, their darker cans had lots of bass and just the right amount of treble. Now, they're getting the treble but not as much of the bass. When they crank up the Grados to get more bass, they're getting too much treble and they're wandering through the desert, clutching their ears and yelping as they go. That's because the Grados need amping to restore the bass that was lost because of the open-air design. Quite a number of dynamics want that transparency that comes out of the classic Stax designs. The open-backed headphones provide that transparency by eliminating the excessive resonance and standing waves produced in so many closed-back headphones. But since LF waves are omnidirectional, most of the bass is leaking, which leaves the listener feeling that the headphones are unnecessarily "bright." Without a solid amp, you don't know what you're missing. Yes, the headphones will work and yes, they still sound great, but if you want that wonderful, warm, hearty presence that the headphones are capable of producing, you need a decent amp. You don't need a thousand-dollar amp, but you should be prepared to spend at least a few hundred dollars on something a little higher in the food chain. A well-powered amp will not just give you volume (which you don't need with Grados). It will give your headphones the power to really let that bass come in. Without a good amp, you're only getting half of the Grado experience. Now, you may say this sucks, that Grado shouldn't make their headphones like this, but it's the price you pay for that wonderful, crystalline, sparkle. If you buy certain headphones, like the Senns, you may end up having to get the right amp or the right cable to bring out a fuller HF. With the Grados, it's just the opposite. You need a good amp so you can get a fuller LF. But make no mistake about it, with a decent amp you'll be blown away by how well the Grados give you the best of both worlds. And when you have the proper balance of bass, you won't need to crank the music up and the treble won't hurt your ears.

Am not expert on amps, but I find my SR80 significantly better with amp ... and I am not even using anything exotic, just a simple Creek OBH-21. So I agree with Bilavideo.

I thing to note : I found my SR80 sounded much better after 100+ hours of play.

 

[keezzzz]

Congrats !!
You can buy a Nuforce Icon Mobile , works great with the SR80
A nice amp for a nice price

 

[cegras]

It's not that the headphones may not be what you want. Rather, it's simply that you aren't used to their sound signature yet. Humans judge things based upon contrasts (due to the lack of absolutes in our frame of reference, unlike science). If you were listening to headphones radically different from the SR80s, then you may find them bad.

The solution is obviously to listen to them more - "burn them in". After a while you may come to like them - if not, sell em.

 

[rabyburns]

Of course i can tell the difference between buds and the grados - that's just silly, sometimes people just luv to flame.

I was using PX-100's, then came onto this forum to look for an alternative then read about the Grado's. When I say what am i paying for it's because i like to makeup my own mind about things.

I will learn myself, but i'm asking what should i look for, i know they've meant to sound better but what music should i listen too?

10 years ago i upgraded to separates from a small aiwa hifi and at first i had the same feeling, i thought "hey these are overrated" then a few weeks later it was like hitting a wall, i couldn't believe how poor the aiwa sounded now i had become accustomed to my separates.... Well, i'm expecting the same experience with these..

& a seperate question, does anyone use spotify as their main music sourse? I have a premium account with them & read the sound quality if far superior to itunes..?

 

[baka1969]

I posted this in another thread just a few minutes ago:

In my experience Grados are more easily
paired with an amp than many other
headphones. Obviously the better the
amp and higher up the Grado food chain
the better the result. The humble
Nuforce Icon Mobile works well in many
situations when paired with Grado.
Strapped to an iPod and using the dac
for computer use bring out more of the
potential of the 60, 80, 125 and I'll
assume the MS1. Even the 225 benefits
with it. For $100 ($75 used) the Icon
Mobile is an excellent dac/amp value for
Grado.


Ross

EDIT: The Icon Mobile is smaller than an iPod Classic making it very portable.

 

[ufotofu]

This is my first post here. I'm a total newb when it comes to amps/dacs and the plethora of other golden ear gear talked about on here. I have, however, owned a nice set of SR80s for the past 5 years. They've got around 2-300 hours on them by now. I put them away when the iTunes boom hit a few years ago - quantity vs. quality as I attempted to cram all of my albums onto my then 60GB HDD at 128kbps. Yes, Grados stink with uber-compressed formats. I find them unlistenable with anything less than a 256k MP3 or AAC. Cheaper in-ears sound much better on that stuff. I use my 8gb iPod Nano and 256kbps AACs with a $30 Sony MDR71s for that.

That said, I've recently happened upon this site, and the tech talk coupled with a desire to hear quality again had me digging the SR80s out of their alcove, downloading FUBAR2000, EAC and ripping FLACs. WOW! What a difference! And I'm just running straight from my computer sound (onboard Realtek HD audio).

One newb to another - take a few hours and do what I did recently. Rip a decent cd to FLAC and then compare that same cd ripped to, say, 128kbps MP3. Can you hear the difference? Oh, and don't eq it up. Let it play unmolested in a quiet room. Also, listen what's happening outside of the tune. You will likely hear details you never knew where there. I've found the SR80s to be harsh in the first 100hrs or so, and then they settle down and just sound wonderful. A great, and very common, recording that I've found for demos is the Pink Floyd "Dark Side of The Moon" album.

Best of luck to you!

 

[spinneresque]

Grados (even SR80's) are great at making the difference between lossless and lossy very obvious. I would probably pick my grados first if I wanted to demonstrate that to someone.

And once again sorry to be a nay-sayer, but I had the nuforce icon mobile after much reading, and I had to sell it because it was so useless compared to the Total Bithead I had on loan. The icon mobile is small, it looks great, but no volume comes out of that little thing, so don't expect that, but anyway I bought it to just make my phones sound better and it simply was not up to the task. So one big NON-recommendation for that one here. I even sent it back to the company and got a whole new one, the flaws in the sound were the same. Also the lithium rechargeable batter turned out to be very unreliable and a real drag. I wonder if these people who are always recommending the thing even have one or have ever heard one? (All due respect to all present here...).

 

[Bilavideo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spinneresque /img/forum/go_quote.gif Respectfully disagree with only the point that amping can solve the problems of the SR60/80. But nice post, Billavideo.

No problem. I'm not saying an amp will make an SR-60 sound like a PS-1000 but I, myself, was surprised at how much better the SR-60 sounded when I put it through the right amp. It's not an issue of loudness, since the Grados are easy to drive. It's that one aspect of the Grado sound, the bass, gets lost because of the open-air design. Without an amp, people naturally crank the volume up louder, hoping to get more bass. When they do, they get more of it (though probably not as much as they'd like). In the meantime, they also get more HF, which is already ample.

It's the occupational hazard of a very open design, one that the K-1000s had because of their driver-only design. We often forget that these 40mm drivers are not woofers; they're just wide-range drivers. If you take away the acoustics that cup the bass - in the name of decluttering the HF - you get great sparkle but you lose a lot of bass. For music that doesn't require a lot of bass to begin with, unamp'd Grados are fine. But when you're listening to music where the bass is a bigger part of the experience, something has to be done to get it back. You can invent ingenious methods of scooping up more bass without turning the rest of the presentation into sonic mud, or you can use an amp to target that one area where the presentation is lacking.

I've found that with the right amp - such as my M^3 or my Beta 22 - you can get the bass you need without having to crank the phones up to painful volumes. What's more, you can get beautiful HF, with lots of clarity and detail. For me, Grados are a lot of fun because they're both engaging and revealing. I regularly discover things I missed in music I've been hearing for decades.

But you're right about the SR60 and SR80. There's only so much you can do with them. I tweaked my SR60 in a number of ways - pulling off the front and back grills, encasing it in wood, changing the wiring - and all of those tweaks made it a better headphone. But when I listened to my better headphone, it never sounded as good as my GS1k and the RS-1 still had a more polished presentation. Even with the plastic off, it's a plastic Grado.

Quote:

And off topic, but since someone brought it up, I was away from headfi for a few years and when I came back there were so many more of these insulting knowier-than-thou posts and posters (Billavideo I am not referring to your post in any way, I'm talking about the 'Santa Broken Toys' appropriate reply to just one such post). Headfi did not used to be like this. There is so much more negativity and rude behavior floating around here these days. Isn't that way everyone left that other forum in the first place?

No offense taken. I agree. Civility seems to be harder to come by these days.

 

[Drubbing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rabyburns /img/forum/go_quote.gif Of course i can tell the difference between buds and the grados - that's just silly, sometimes people just luv to flame. I was using PX-100's, then came onto this forum to look for an alternative then read about the Grado's. When I say what am i paying for it's because i like to makeup my own mind about things. I will learn myself, but I'm asking what should i look for, i know they've meant to sound better but what music should i listen too?

Mate, I just can't fathom your reasoning here, you say you like to make your own mind up, but then pose the 'what am I paying for with these phones' question. That's like going into a headphone shop and saying to the sales guy...

'Let me hear a pair of headphones that make the music you like, sound really great.'

Listen to the Grados for a few weeks, then go try the Px100s again and see what you think. If the Grados don't make your music sound more enjoyable in comparison - and it really is as simple as that - then try something else.

 

[Bilavideo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drubbing /img/forum/go_quote.gif Listen to the Grados for a few weeks, then go try the Px100s again and see what you think. If the Grados don't make your music sound more enjoyable in comparison - and it really is as simple as that - then try something else.

That's solid advice. Listen to the phones for a week. Don't worry about what you're supposed to hear. Just use them for a week. Settle into them. Give them a chance. When the week is up, if they don't work for you, move on. I can't guarantee you'll like them after a week, but I can promise you that your appreciation for what they do will go up dramatically.

 

[panda]

px100 - thick and slow, more of a thumper
sr80 - light and quick, more of a puncher

if u don't hear that contrast, might as well not even bother and pick the one that's most comfortable.

 

[rabyburns]

Quote:

Originally Posted by panda /img/forum/go_quote.gif px100 - thick and slow, more of a thumper sr80 - light and quick, more of a puncher if u don't hear that contrast, might as well not even bother and pick the one that's most comfortable.

the PX100's broke, the wire is broken and i only get sound from 1 ear, i bought a pair of portapros's though after reading about them hear..

& i thought the build quality of the grado's which is mostly plastic and the plastic band was very cheap for headphones costing £100+..

But maybe the sound will makeup for that once i've broken them in

 

[ufotofu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rabyburns /img/forum/go_quote.gif ...& i thought the build quality of the grado's which is mostly plastic and the plastic band was very cheap for headphones costing £100+.. But maybe the sound will makeup for that once i've broken them in

I've had my SR80s for years now with no problems at all with durability. Unless you just throw them around or fry them they'll last. These are the first headphones I've had to last over a year. But then again these are the first headphones I had that cost near $100. Get you a peg or stand to hang them on when not in use.

I agree with the billavideo about the Grado and the bass. So much so that I ordered a new HiFiman EF2 DAC/tube amp from ALO the other day after reading a good review of it on here. I'm anxious to see what my music sounds like after it gets burned in.

 

[Drubbing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rabyburns /img/forum/go_quote.gif the PX100's broke, the wire is broken and i only get sound from 1 ear, i bought a pair of portapros's though after reading about them hear.. & i thought the build quality of the grado's which is mostly plastic and the plastic band was very cheap for headphones costing £100+.. But maybe the sound will makeup for that once i've broken them in

They'll a lot less liable to break than the PX, which are of cheaper plastic and flimsy metal. With Grado's you're paying for the sound, not street bling. They're also hand assembled in the US, not on a conveyor in China, so that's costs more too.

 

[rabyburns]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drubbing /img/forum/go_quote.gif They'll a lot less liable to break than the PX, which are of cheaper plastic and flimsy metal. With Grado's you're paying for the sound, not street bling. They're also hand assembled in the US, not on a conveyor in China, so that's costs more too.

it's funny you say that cause i think their the coolest looking headphones ever, that's what attracted me to them and not a modern set, it's also the thing people keep saying when they see them.. But i'm glad they also have substance and not just looks, i'm starting to love them already