The New Grado HP100 SE Arrives at Audio46

[Audio46]

Audio46 is an Authorized Dealer of Grado

Grado’s new Signature HP100 SE headphones are a contemporary homage to the trailblazing high-end HP1 model heralding a new design direction. Grado Labs founder Joseph Grado created what many consider the high-end headphone market with the release of the Signature HP1 headphones in the early 1990s.
While the HP100 SE pays homage to Grado’s illustrious past, these headphones are a contemporary version of a true classic, with a new design from the ground up. With newly engineered drivers, the HP100 SE also boasts detachable cables and a fresh headband assembly. This also ushers in a new direction for future Grado headphone releases. As always, the HP100 SE is hand-assembled in its Brooklyn-based headquarters.

The Grado HP100 SE is in stock and shipping now at Audio46. Enjoy it during your Thanksgiving break with Free U.S. delivery.

SHOP HP100 SE>

 

[mortcola]

this is a major league headphone. Incredible transient performance. First rate bass - fast, tuneful, warm and highly textured. And although I don't have a means of testing frequency response, my bass reference tracks (Frederic Alarie, Exchange; Joni MitchellOverture/Cotton Avenue, where Jaco hits the bottom E string hard and lets it fade. 20 and 33 Hz... little to no roll off, beautiful clear pitch and harmonics.

I have owned it for five days, alternating my listening time Susvara Unveiled, the letter costing more than three times as much. They are obviously very different, but the $2500 Grado seems to dig every last charm quark of micro-detail out of a perfectly delineated macro. Extraordinary inner, macro and micro detail, unfettered dynamics,detail and precision.

The $8000 Unveiled managers to sound life-size, dynamic, simultaneously warm and gripping, music flowing seamlessly ... for you Next Generation trekkies, kind of like OG Susvara as Data after learning to deal with his emotion chip, sacrificing no precision in the process. of course it is a more complete and sophisticated headphone. The unveiled would have some explaining to do if it weren't. But they are both flagships, albeit of very different character, and the Grado is by no means outclassed.

I have always been a fan of the Grado brand, going back the phone cartridges I worked with at a dealership in the mid 80s. Yes. It's bright. It's a Grado headphone. this driver, this total package, lacks nothing on an absolute scale; I honestly believe they could afford to shave a little off that lower treble hump. A headphone as remarkably incisive as this one simply doesn't need the extra presence. on the other hand, turns out it's a first rate chameleon. Feed it well, and those assertive highs are silky, strong and spectral at once. Like many flagships, it is unforgiving of crap and mediocrity. this is not a flaw. Call it personality.

listening to one of my favorite albums, Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. crystalline, monumental scope, and a low end simultaneously developing and precise. Vocals communicate intimately.

At 2500 bucks, this is a major achievement. I've been grooving on the OG utopia for the last month. And all humble honesty, this new Grado HP100SE does not take a backseat to that iconic dynamic headphone.... perhaps is less polite, but in musical and pure sonic terms, especially detail, precision, stage depth, and both bass depth and clarity, this crazy overachiever might just surpass it.

And it isn't burned in yet; it has smoothed out and opened up over these five days, but I can't wait to hear where it lands.

The headband is actually substantially more padded even as the visuals haven't changed much. The rod and gimbal assembly does not spin forever, limited to 105°, I am told. As far as I can tell, these are the standard G cushions, but the headphone sits well balanced and comfortable on my big head. It has that utilitarian attractiveness, austere and pretty at once, which many users like very much. However, they seem a bit more solid, aesthetically and ergonomically a more sophisticated design than detractors might expect.

if this is the first a new generation, and Grado has taken a giant step in the future of the headphone market. They would be well advised to build from this template. It is an amazingly good headphone, and yes, a 2500 bucks, a great bargain among high-end headphones.

 

[Luckyleo]

I've had mine for a few days as well. I really enjoy these on tube amps, but they sounded really good on my Violectric V222 as well. If you like the Grado house sound, but wanted more tightly controlled bass, sub-bass (yes on a Grado), and timbre that is refined and smooth with an underlying "grit" this is for you.

I'm biased, as I truly am a Grado aficionado, but these things are at another level. Agree with @mortcola that Grado may have it's best years ahead of them, if this is the blueprint for the future.

 

[mortcola]

I think we're hearing it the same way. And yes, I've listened on my Woo audio WA5, and with that little extra mid range glow, it's glorious. Simultaneously tight and rich, I like the way you put it terms of that underlying grit along with refinement, smoothness, timbre.