[CC Lemon]

I just got some grado SR225i's for christmas along with a total bithead. As you can probably figure out from the title, I've come across an issue with a couple of songs. For the most part I'm liking them, though I have noticed that it makes a few songs sound weird, but not so much that it is unenjoyable. That said, there have been at least a couple songs where it absolutely butchers them. The only huge issue I've noticed is with a few vocals.

The first song I noticed was from a musical (les miserable). There are 2 people singing at each other, equally loud (in theory), basically in a battle to overpower each other. It's a whole different story with the grados though. With the grado, it's one powerful voice battling another voice which sounds to be 50 feet further away from me. I can still hear it clearly, but it's so distant that it just completely loses the feeling of the song.

The other song is a rock song by the raconteurs called "Steady, As she goes". The chorus (not surprisingly) starts off with "steady as she goes" with it being echoed slightly quieter in the background. With the grados it's almost as if it's not even there. It basically just disappears.

I'm definitely feeling that overall, many male vocals are weaker than they should be, but it definitely depends on who it is. The few issues I've come across dont really apply to every song that the artist does, just a few. Is there anything I can do about this issue or am I better off switching headphones for those songs?

 

[BoogieWoogie]

I own a MS1 and I share the same issue in some musics like Black Mirror from arcade fire the voice has no life is kinda faded.

 

[CC Lemon]

These headphones astound me. I can why people like them when they're good, but it's appalling what they do to some songs. I'd have to say they make about half of the stuff I regularly listen to not as enjoyable and completely destroys about 5-10 percent of it. I love them for the rest of the stuff though. I can't tell if I like them overall or not. I really enjoy them when they're good and fortunately I was able to get 2 sets of headphones so my HFI-780's perform where the grados cant. I'm going to hold onto them for a bit longer and see if they grow on me.

The thing that's annoying me is how the songs I feel get destroyed are just completely lacking sounds. It's there but it's so muted that you wouldn't even notice it's still there unless you knew the song and were looking for it. The instance with les miserable is the only time I've come across it making sounds distant. The rest of the songs I'm having issues with are basically missing sounds as if they were never there at all.

From what I read prior to purchasing these, some people use these as their main or only set of phones without any complaints. I wouldn't say I have an amazingly diverse selection of music, but I can't imagine how someone with an even slightly diverse selection could actually enjoy these as their sole pair of phones.