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Well, it's either been through an old JVC stereo, or Bose On-Ear. Though this is likely because I've listened to both for much longer than the Grados, I feel as if I can hear more detail using both the stereo and the Bose. There's a few other examples but the two biggest are Deerhunter's "Desire Lines" and Sonic Youth's "(I Got A) Catholic Block." With the first song, the guitar riff that enters about 15 seconds in is barely audible. With the Sonic Youth song that fuzzed bassline is barely there. There's a few other ones, but these are most noticeable. As for the cable, I've already ordered the Grado adapter, should be in any day now. Anyway, thanks again for the help.
I don't have either of those songs. So I resorted to YouTube for the songs. That's risky in that YouTube versions don't always fairly represent what the CD versions sound like.
Here's the two versions I listened to on YouTube
Sonic Youth
Deerhunter (I listened to the 720P HD version)
Are those fair representations of the CD audio versions? The audio in the Sonic Youth video sounds rather poor. I don't know if the actual CD sounds like that or not. The audio in the Deerhunter song seems pretty good.
Anyways, both songs offer sonic challenges for the Grado 325is. Neither makes the 325is sound its best.
The fuzzed bass in the Sonic Youth song is at a lower frequency than the Grado is able to emphasize. The Grado starts to roll off at around 100 Hz and falls off at a pretty good rate. My Sennheiser HD600 headphones also start to roll off at around 100 Hz and they aren't able to bring out that fuzzy bass either. My Denon D2000 go deeper and are able to bring out the fuzz. I also listened using my M-Audio BX8a monitors. They go down to about 50 Hz (I don't have a sub) and they were starting to bring out the fuzzy bass lines. Not all that well though. And the song sounded uncomfortably odd and poorly mastered when listening on the BX8a. It was literally making me uncomfortable to listen to it. Does the CD version of the song really sound like that? It has some odd EQ and effects that make it sound thin and some unnatural frequency holes/gaps.
The Deerhunter hits on the "shouty" frequency bumps that the 325is (and other Grados) can fall prey to. The SR series grados have a bump at around 2000 Hz that can make some parts of the music become "shouty" if they manage to hit that frequency zone just right. In Desire Lines the words "
me" and "
free" in "come with me" and "walking free" manage to hit that shouty frequency and resonate a bit too much. The guitar riff that enters at about 15 seconds also gets part of its sound resonated by that shouty zone. The body of the guitar sound gets resonated by the shouty zone which obscures the plucky part of the guitar sound. So if you're listening for the plucky part (and that's where the melodic line is) it will be obscured and not as obvious as it should be.
So yup. What you're hearing is the Grado being a bad partner and not doing what is best for the music.
You can help the Sonic Youth song by EQing in more bass. I sometimes add a virtual subwoofer DSP effect to help the Grado when the song needs more of the lower region of the bass than the Grado naturally does. Otherwise I switch to my Denon D2000 when I want/need to hear what's gong on in the lower bass.
You can help the Deerhunter song by doing some EQ to lower the upper mids and treble. If you look at my sig I often do a shelf EQ with my 325is to fix exactly that problem. Start the shelf EQ before 2000 Hz cause the shouty zone is around the 2000 Hz region. So start at say 1500 Hz and lower every slider on the EQ by 3 dB and see what happens. That will help neutralize the shouty zone and let you hear the guitar riff better. You can experiment with how much to lower the shelf. Sometimes lowering it by 3 dB is too much, sometimes just right. Depends on the song and how I'm feeling.
