[ChronicLiar]

Recently bought a pair of HD 558s and a GRADO sr325is. I also own my ATH m50s and Skullcandy Aviators ( skull candy aviators were my first headphones lol xD)
 
I expected the GRADO to outperform all of these headphones (300$ price tag) and it did, but after leaving it in my room for 2 weeks I picked it up and I noticed some weird treble distortion.
 
The distortion occurs during bass heavy songs only (electronic music, hip hop, etc.) and never occurs during classical music or singer-songwriter stuff. It is very minimal (But I can surely hear it) and starts to occur at around 60-70 percent volume directly plugged in to a macbook pro.
 
My sennhiesers seem to have  the same problem (Maybe i'm just not used to open back headphones?)
 
Songs I hear it the most are:
Deadmau5- I remember
Skrillex- Wild for the night  and
 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qafg68zYwdc
 
I would like suggestions because i'm really upset ATM        8(

 

[appsmarsterx]

have you tried them with a different amp/dac ?

 

[bobby12]

Same thing happens to me when using my on board sound card. No problems when using the dx90 though. I'm not sure how good your macbook's sound card, but if it's as good as my on board sound card then that might be the problem.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

  Recently bought a pair of HD 558s and a GRADO sr325is. I also own my ATH m50s and Skullcandy Aviators ( skull candy aviators were my first headphones lol xD)
 
I expected the GRADO to outperform all of these headphones (300$ price tag) and it did, but after leaving it in my room for 2 weeks I picked it up and I noticed some weird treble distortion.
 
The distortion occurs during bass heavy songs only (electronic music, hip hop, etc.) and never occurs during classical music or singer-songwriter stuff. It is very minimal (But I can surely hear it) and starts to occur at around 60-70 percent volume directly plugged in to a macbook pro.
 
My sennhiesers seem to have  the same problem (Maybe i'm just not used to open back headphones?)
 
Songs I hear it the most are:
Deadmau5- I remember
Skrillex- Wild for the night  and
 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qafg68zYwdc
 
I would like suggestions because i'm really upset ATM        8(

 
When you say it doesn't do it on "classical," does that include the ones with really powerful bass tracks? It could be due to the bass and it just happens that some classical music has that too. Try some Mahler and Zimmer, also 1812 Overture.
 
Also if it is in fact caused by the bass there are a lot of different possibilities as to the cause, as well as how I haven't heard the distortion myself. However if it occurs with both the HD558 and the SR325i:

1) There could be debris inside the ear cup. Hair falling in through the rear or even the front baffle is a common problem with Grados, so if you have long and thick enough hair, statistically speaking it may happen to the Sennheisers too. I found hair inside my HD600 earcup when I cleaned it up - who knows how long it's been there since it wasn't on the driver itself (and since it wasn't causing any problems, I never really had reason to open it up until I took it apart when I needed to replace the headband pads anyway). Other frequencies don't move the hair, but bass does, and then the flapping sound it makes interferes with the treble.
 
2) Not knowing how loud "60 to 70%" on a Macbook is, it might even be caused by how it interacts with distortion from the amplification hardware. Do you listen at the same volume with the closed headphones? It's possible that you listen at a much lower volume on the closed headphones since they isolate background/environmental noise better, but once you use the open headphones, you get up to that level to compensate. On my Acer laptop 40% is already loud with an SR80 and SR225, and 55% is deafening. My HD600 needs 70% to get to an acceptable sound level (and bass is a little loose) but there's already audible distortion by 80%. As to what specifically, there can be a legion of explanations, as again I cannot hear the sound and cannot zero in on the most likely ones, but it could be anything from clipping to more permanent driver damage from constant clipping (and heat build up).

 

[cel4145]

+1

Hair in the cup is a common problem reported by Grado fans.

 

[ChronicLiar]

Thanks for your help

 

[ChronicLiar]

No... I should

 

[ChronicLiar]

I found the issue.
 
Using my mouth I softly sucked on the bottom part of the ear cup on my sr 325is. It did stop the rattling (I have allot of curly thick hair man so stuck is gonna get in... haha).
 
I also used my m50s to test if they picked up the slight distortion and they actually did :O (I couldn't use my m50s before to test out the songs because i lent them to a friend)
 
So The main problem was that it was a FAKE FLAC audio file and when I put the volume up i could hear just how bad it was. Just ran audio checker and it's fake HAHAHAHA.
 
Thanks for your help