[Blue Boat]

Does anyone else EQ their Grados?
 
I push the bar up 5db at 10k, 4db at 7k, 3db at 5k, 2db at 3.5k, 1db at 2.5k  to make them a little brighter.  
 
They sound more detailed at lower volume when eq'd. 
 
/edited

 

[wje]

Quote:

Does anyone else EQ their Grados? 
 
They sound more detailed at lower volume when eq'd. 
 

 
I don't EQ mine since I'm not running the headphone off of my computer where I'd have access to EQ software.  However, I do have a vintage stereo receiver that I'm using for my Grados.  With that piece of equipment, I do use the Loudness button, which enhances the frequencies at lower listening levels.  It really makes my Grados sound beautiful.

 

[Blue Boat]

Quote:

 
I don't EQ mine since I'm not running the headphone off of my computer where I'd have access to EQ software.  However, I do have a vintage stereo receiver that I'm using for my Grados.  With that piece of equipment, I do use the Loudness button, which enhances the frequencies at lower listening levels.  It really makes my Grados sound beautiful.

 
What vintage stereo receiver are you using? I saw a couple of used receivers at a local shop, Denon, Marantz and other generic Japanese brands for cheap. I was going to get one but I use my Grados as portables.

 

[GravitySmacked]

Quote:

Does anyone else EQ their Grados? 
I push the bar up 5db at 10k, 4db at 7k, 3db at 5k, 2db at 3.5k, 1db at 2.5k  to make them a little brighter.  
 
They sound more detailed at lower volume when eq'd. 
 
/edited

I up the lower end a little.
 

 

[dgcrane]

I am running a minty Marantz 1150 from the late 70's for my bedroom setup and its the schiit
 


 
Quote:

 
What vintage stereo receiver are you using? I saw a couple of used receivers at a local shop, Denon, Marantz and other generic Japanese brands for cheap. I was going to get one but I use my Grados as portables.

 

 

[wje]

Quote:

 
What vintage stereo receiver are you using? I saw a couple of used receivers at a local shop, Denon, Marantz and other generic Japanese brands for cheap. I was going to get one but I use my Grados as portables.

It's a Sansui model # 881.  It has bass, mid-range and treble controls.  It was their top of the line receiver at the time they were producing that particular series.  Marantz and Sansui are supposed to have "like" sound when it comes to a signature.  The Pioneer vintage models have a bit of a different sound - but, not bad.  Technics, from what I've read can be a bit "light" sounding when compared to the others.  I haven't seen any vintage Denon gear, I guess I should search a bit more.  There's some Onkyo stuff out there, Luxman from Japan, etc. that should be some good grabs.

 

[Blue Boat]

Quote:

It's a Sansui model # 881.  It has bass, mid-range and treble controls.  It was their top of the line receiver at the time they were producing that particular series.  Marantz and Sansui are supposed to have "like" sound when it comes to a signature.  The Pioneer vintage models have a bit of a different sound - but, not bad.  Technics, from what I've read can be a bit "light" sounding when compared to the others.  I haven't seen any vintage Denon gear, I guess I should search a bit more.  There's some Onkyo stuff out there, Luxman from Japan, etc. that should be some good grabs.

Maybe they're not vintage. Just really old-looking. 

 
Has anyone ever plugged in their Grado into a guitar amp? 

 

[Chris_Himself]

Quote:

Maybe they're not vintage. Just really old-looking. 

 
Has anyone ever plugged in their Grado into a guitar amp? 

Yea MS1's into a Crate V-Series amp, sounds good

 

[BobSaysHi]

Howdy yall, the last time I checked in was when Bilavideo was still around. Has anything significant happened since then in the sr60 modding scene?

 

[wje]

Quote:

Howdy yall, the last time I checked in was when Bilavideo was still around. Has anything significant happened since then in the sr60 modding scene?

Unfortunately, not.  BilaDildo has disappeared ... and so has the headphones of a few members as well as the cash that many other members provided to him for cups, but were never delivered.
 

 

[Blue Boat]

Does anyone know the tape they use to cover the 10 holes?

 

[wje]

Quote:

Does anyone know the tape they use to cover the 10 holes?

 
It's hard to find the exact material or fabric that Grado uses.  I've found something awfully similar in the past at a fabric store when I had to put a new piece of fabric on the bottom of a box spring for a bed.  It actually looked the same.  Chris, another member here, has found some lighter fabric from a fabric store - it's sort of like a muslin fabric.  The muslin is only sold in an off-white color, which I've purchased and used a sharpie marker to color it black so if one looked through the screen at the backs of the drivers, they wouldn't see the light fabric.  Plus, it's very cheap to buy.
 
 

 

[Blue Boat]

Quote:

 
It's hard to find the exact material or fabric that Grado uses.  I've found something awfully similar in the past at a fabric store when I had to put a new piece of fabric on the bottom of a box spring for a bed.  It actually looked the same.  Chris, another member here, has found some lighter fabric from a fabric store - it's sort of like a muslin fabric.  The muslin is only sold in an off-white color, which I've purchased and used a sharpie marker to color it black so if one looked through the screen at the backs of the drivers, they wouldn't see the light fabric.  Plus, it's very cheap to buy. 
 

I actually found that the cloth that covers the underside of the drivers and really porous bandage to be good substitutes... But nothing quite produces the same sound as the tape in Grados.

 

[Questhate]

 
Quote:

 
What vintage stereo receiver are you using? I saw a couple of used receivers at a local shop, Denon, Marantz and other generic Japanese brands for cheap. I was going to get one but I use my Grados as portables.

Vintage receivers from the 70's to early 80's are the sweet spot for price/performance. They had beefy power supply units that would beast most modern receivers. 
 
The thing you have to keep in mind, is that low-impedence headphones (like Grados) weren't popular until the mp3/iPod era. So most of these receivers were engineered to play nice with high-impedence headphones (150+ ohms) that were common in that era. Back then, most of the headphone outs were powered directly from the speaker amp section, so there are generally very high output impedences because of the resistors installed. For low-impedence headphones like Grados, you may experience clipping on the bottom end. Also, with high-sensitive Grados, you may get a perpetual hiss/hum.  
 
With that said, my Grados sounded great with the Marantz 2220B, which isn't that powerful. Marantz and Sansuis have a warm, almost-tubey sound that work well with Grados (imo), while the Pioneers are more flat. On my Allied 498 (re-branded Pioneer SX-9XXX series), the hiss at 0 volume rendered it unusable. If you're buying a vintage, I'd recommend bringing your headphones along to test out the headphone-out before buying. 
 

 

[meltdown100]

I've lurked on this (and the previous SR-60) thread long enough, I finally put together a pair of customized SR60s and I'll post my impressions.  I had a pair of SR-60s for almost a year now that were purchased with the intent of modding - and finally I've gotten around to getting things going.  I just want to say that I am really glad there's now people making/selling cups - because I love DIY but buying a lathe or CNC is just not something I want to do to further this hobby (yet, anyway).  Soldering wasn't such a big deal in terms of investing in equipment or learning.  That's why my SR60s collected dust for so long.  

 
So I revisited the thread and just got a pair of wood cups from Marty (who I'd recommend, by the way - great communication, fast shipping, etc.), so I opened 4 of the rear holes behind the driver for bass, glued a felt disk to the back of the driver, plus removed the thread mesh from the front - I'm ordering some silver cabling and the bowl pads but for now I of course had to see what these things would sound like with the physical mods I'd implemented so far plus the nice wood cups - so I soldered the stock cable back on.  Man I love the rush I get when I first fire up a new piece of gear I haven't heard yet, especially when I just soldered it together myself a few minutes earlier - goosebumps, haha.  I'm sure you all know the feeling I describe.  
 
With cold beer in hand I fire up a nice lossless-encoded track.  For those who care, I'm using a PC with optical out into an AMB gamma2 into a K.I.C.A.S. amp.  I started with some Gary Moore.  Wow...  The difference in bass is mind-blowing.  Amazing.  In the subjective world of audio I can say that this is one of those things that everybody has agreed on about the hole mod.  The holes, even just 4 - make a world of difference and completely change the way these drivers sound.  These slam now - the bass and percussion is muscular and tight.  Not boomy or muddy at all, but definitely very pronounced compared to the ER4S and RE0 I normally use for portable listening.  And I am very pleased with the results.
 
Now I did like the sound of the stock SR-60, but I only liked it for about 20-30 minutes before the 'sizzle' in the highs and mids started to fatigue my ears.  I do not get that fatigue nearly as bad even from the crispy ER4S, which says a lot about how uber-crisp the SR60 can be.  The 'crispness', or 'sizzle', is now gone from my SR60 after the mods, mids and highs are there, guitars still sound meaty, but there's definitely an intrusion by the bass prominence into the midrange space - where the mids and highs really used to be front and center on these headphones they are now a bit recessed and more blended back into the overall sound.  And it's not a bad thing, because I can now really listen to and enjoy these headphones for a much longer time without fatigue.  And they're still very 'in-your-face'.  To emphasize how good and non-fatiguing these sounded, I must have sat in front of my PC for about 4 hours just listening to various tracks and everything sounded great.  I was particularly impressed with the instrument separation and detail/resolution on these, both were very good to my ears.  Soundstage was an improvement to what I am used to with the RE0 and ER4S (as would be expected against IEMs), but not quite on the level I recall having had with the 'super-airy' K701s I used to own.
 
I really can't wait to see what the silver recabling does...!
 
Never having heard anything higher in the Grado lineup than the SR60 I am now really curious how these compare to the higher end models (either stock or modded), I'm curious what improvements/changes I could expect if I put SR125 or SR225 drivers in...  I'm kind of laughing at myself because by the time I'm finished with these SR60s I could have easily bought a nice used pair of RS2's.  But it's really a lot of fun tweaking these things, in a way more gratifying, I think.  I know a lot of folks here will agree, it's the whole point of this thread after all.