So, my HF2s arrived yesterday and I've spent maybe 9/10 hours with them thus far. I know it's not a lot, but I thought I'd post some impressions anyway.
For a little bit of background, I've had SR80s for approx. five years, and for a year, year and half, had a pair of GS1000s. I sold the GS1000s at the beginning of this year for a number of reasons:
- I was starting to want a change.
- While I convinced myself I liked them at first, as time progressed, I felt there was just too much impact from bass and treble was too harsh with a lot of what I listened to which made them quite fatiguing. There were times where I just didn't want to use them.
- Weight and size. They were big headphones, and while they maybe weren't as heavy as you'd expect, I was starting to find that I couldn't wear them for long periods of time or I'd get a sore neck. I just didn't like having headphones that size on all the time either.
- Build quality/materials. They always felt very fragile. I take care of the things that I buy but I was always worrying that they might get scratched, dented or otherwise damaged.
- I was working on building a home theatre room and the money was helpful.
Once they were sold, I went back to my SR80s with the intention of buying something around the £300 price-point using about half the money I made from selling the GS1000s, but I never got around to it. A week before I ordered (which was June 3rd) my SR80s finally died. I had them replaced once, and had to have them recabled a couple of times due to the Y split failing on them. This time, one of the drivers just seemed to have completely died, as they wouldn't produce any sound after recabling them the last time.
So it was good timing on my part that I happened upon the HF-2s and basically bought them without thinking twice because they seemed like such a good deal. (in the UK, Grados are usually about twice as expensive as US prices, so getting them at US prices was a good deal on its own)
Unfortunately due to being a little late on ordering (I have #288) and delays along the way, I was stuck without any headphones for two and a half months! Well, not entirely without headphones—I was stuck using
these.
(I had them thrown in with an order a long time ago)
So here are my impressions of the HF2s. Firstly, build quality.
Well, you know what they say about Grados—if they don't have cosmetic issues they're probably fake.
There are lots of little nicks/scratches in the metal, and one of the cups had some stray glue on it, but that came off pretty easily. The metal around the lettering seems a bit… smudged as well. (I thought it was the photo at first)
The Y split on the headphones looks pretty dubious, but better than any of the SR80s I've had or the GS1000.
I prefer the new cabling—it seems much better quality than either of my older Grados. What I don't like about it though is the new connector. The moulded plug seems to be a lot smaller now, and I don't know if it's maybe just that my Grado extension cord is getting old, but it plugs in too far and one of the channels cuts out intermittently. As a temporary measure, I've put a small rubber washer on it which seems to have solved things, but I'll have to see about getting a new extension cord. (or checking it with other equipment to see if it's actually the extension cable or the headphones at fault)
All this aside though, I
really like the way they look. The aluminium looks great, the cups are just the right size & shape, and they feel really good too. They feel
solid—not light and cheap like my SR80s, but not too big and heavy like the GS1000.
Just right as far as I'm concerned. Probably the best looking headphones Grado have released. (well, maybe the old studio ones are comparable, I haven't seen them in person)
The headband seems about right too. The SR80s was cheap, and required quite a bit of manipulation before I was able to get it to fit right.
With the GS1000s, I had a very hard time getting it adjusted to fit well. Because of the big cups, you needed to have them pressing on quite tight or they'd just slip off, but even though it was spread out, that created quite a bit of pressure on the side of your head. I had it just at the point where they wouldn't slip off and I could wear them for a few hours, but it was never quite right.
These are maybe slightly tight right now but they should loosen up a little as time goes on. I don't feel that I really need to stretch the headband out at all though, it's quite comfortable as is.
I still feel that Grado are putting the headbands on backwards though. It was much more of a problem with the GS1000 because they were big and heavy headphones, but they held in place
much better if they were reversed with the weight being in front of the headband rather than behind it. I'd really like to see them change that in future, and it probably wouldn't be too difficult.
So how do they sound? Well, initially I was quite disappointed. They don't seem to be harsh like my other Grados were. I'm not sure I'd say they were smooth at the top-end, they're right on the edge of being sibilant but not quite.
Treble felt very thin and hollow at first though—almost low-fi like a cheap radio or something. Fortunately, even after this little time with them, that seems to be disappearing.
Bass is fairly good. I'd say the impact is about right for my taste. There's enough impact there to sound good, but not so much that they're fatiguing after an hour or two like I found with the GS1000.
They don't seem to handle the
really low notes though, and sometimes bass isn't as distinct as it could be. I wouldn't say it was muddy, but just not quite as fast/detailed as I'd like.
Sound stage seems fairly good from what I've heard so far. A lot better than the SR80s, but not on the same scale as the GS1000's massive sound stage.
I am wondering though if it's maybe not quite as big as I think it is right now, and the fact these headphones seem so ‘open’ is the reason for it. When I say open, I mean the amount of external sound that they let in and out. I'd say they leak sound more than any of the Grados I've had in the past, and they also let in a fair bit too. This is a little problematic for me, as I now have a HTPC, a projector and an air purifier in here which all have fans that I didn't notice at all with those cheap IEMs.
But they sound very ‘transparent’ as a result of this openness. When watching films, sometimes you aren't sure if a sound is coming from the headphones or if it's a noise in the room that you've heard. That's a very good quality in my opinion, as it makes things sound more convincing.
Something else I've noticed is that I can tolerate these at much louder volumes than other headphones that I've had in the past. Now, I'm not the kind of person that plays things loud
at all, nor do I necessarily want everything to be loud.
But I watch a lot of films with headphones on, and I often have the problem that for the quiet bits, I need the headphones turned up louder, and then I find that I have to turn it down for the louder bits. I haven't done a lot of testing, but it seemed like I could tolerate listening at the one volume level with these. (as the film is meant to be heard)
At this point, I'm happy with my purchase. They're maybe not as exciting as the GS1000s were with some music, but they seem like the most balanced and least fatiguing Grados I've heard—a nice middle-ground.
Considering I wear headphones a lot, I think there's a good chance of them becoming my overall favourite headphones as a result of this.
I'd say that they at least match my expectations of what I was getting for this kind of money.
