Ouch, I would never make that generalization. I've heard terribly colored planars as well as supremely dull dynamics.
My point was not only that the Paradox are "colorless", since they are not to absolute extent. They live with the recording, this is true. At least they do it better than many, if not all headphones I've tried.
The thing I enjoy about the Paradox, is how effortless they are playing music. I can jam and fixate to many melodies by many instruments, since I can hear how musicians interact much better. In the midst of a low synth, electric bass and a bass drum I could hear a tuba on a familiar recording. The tempo was pretty fast as well. The tuba not only had bite, but a melodic structure as well. I'd love to hear a grado that could do this. (Have to go find this recording, can't remember what it was!)
With this effortlessness come other positive qualities: timing! On a good recording, or even relatively bad, I can hear faults in a drummer's timing. Those little "decisions" in phrasing (upfront vs. laid back notes, for instance) a drummer makes or other qualities that give each known drummer their distinct style become even more apparent. Mid-range articulation is top notch as well: listening to a lot of brass-oriented big band music this becomes apparent as well.
Everything's smooth and fast. So smooth in treble areas, that ****ty recordings don't sound like crap. Everything is listenable. Artifacts or faults are distinct and even obvious, but not in your face kind of way. Every record also seems to sound very different from another, probably due to their "transparent" nature, highlighting decisions made in the recording studio... or a master engineer.
Probably my only fault with these is that sometimes it seems the bass isn't the most tuneful, sometimes it's better than anything. This is not due to changes in volume across the frequency band: notes have the same volume, but are or aren't distinct.
Example: George Duke - Reach for it. That synth solo has never been such a pleasure to listen. Even my K702's couldn't match that musical precision.
Too lazy to find a counter example, but the K702 did better on some other recordings, where the Paradox might have muffled some notes together where distinct pitches weren't clear.. This might be due to a slight downward slope in bass helping the AKG's case or something else.. I'm open to suggestions.
Anyway, going back to my original positive points, I'd like to make a statement. I dare to say that as far as subjectivity and a preference to sound itself goes, I can't argue. But when it comes down to pure performance, I'd indeed love to hear a Grado distinguish all these fine musical details I'm hearing through the Paradox. With very simple music with an easy going melody, say, a guitar accompanied with vocals, I'd be hard pressed to hear a difference between any headphones, except in color and "sound". I wouldn't even bother. Try something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syhqg5UOSs0
or similar and say a Grado passes with flying colors. The aforementioned criteria is either met or a headphone fails in producing them. I think that's pretty objective. Doesn't matter whether one has different priorities either: One can enjoy less articulate headphones as well. Just saying they're actually "better" only because someone likes the particular color better is a bit silly. In this instance, it's more fair to say that one enjoys the crappier headphone more on a subjective level, to be blunt, heh.
