[rawrimevil]

Hi I know this is probably one of the dumbest questions anyone has ever asked,but today I tried the Grado sr-60i at stereo electronics and I had to crank up the volume to around 60-70% to hear my music properly as compared to my westone 1 iems with only 35-40% volume level. Is this normal, or is there something wrong with my ears. By the way, I'm using iPod touch 4th gen.

 

[Marcus_C]

Yes, it's perfectly normal. It's all down to the Sensitivity and impedance of the headphones. They are very easy to read too much into but the headphone specs a lot of sellers use as a selling point but don't understand can give you an idea of headphones you'll need to crank the volume up (hard to drive) or one's you won't (high sensitivity). Also sometimes you'll have to crank iopen headphones up more to block out the sound which comes in from outside which you won't get in your westones.

 

[rawrimevil]

Ahhh. I see. So it's normal. But will getting an amp of any sort help the whole volume issue? And on an unrelated note,the whole headphone seems to just hang around my head, in the sense that it does not clamp at all,does not even press down on my ears at all. From what I've heard the Grados have an issue with wearing them for long periods of time, but they don't seem uncomfortable in the least! Or is my head just small?

 

[kmhaynes]

The type of phone makes a big difference as well.  Grados are obviously very open headphones with no real isolation, so you have to drown out the noise around you by raising the volume.  IEMs, however, have varying, but much greater, degrees of isolation capabilities due to the fact that you are plugging your ear canal with them, so less volume is required.