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Still have my Vintage SR325, easily my most favorite grado of all time with the #1059 RS1 being second
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I also own a black SR325 now, but it's not a pink transitional or a HP1000 driven one. Actually the driver wall meshes are the whitest of all the Grados I have ever seen... I don't understand if they have been bleached with a double recipe, never used, or were replaced at Grado Labs (and what a flawless repair it would be?). When I look inside them (I like to do that with my Grados, lol) with a flash light (and not with a candle) they have even less dust, and the drivers' (magnet?) brass color is even shinier/cleaner (less oxidized?) than the corresponding same part inside my sr325i from 2005. It is scratch-written "211" on both of them (when I look inside my SR325) and no red marks for the right one.
The flats do bring a bit of bloat to pretty much anything you stick them onto, but I felt that this effect was at its minimal on your old 1059! So it's kind of a good trade-off, with returns the fact that these become really "audiophilishly" smooth, with good bass and absolutely no harshness. In fact I take a song I can't listen at high volumes so much it's only made out of trebles and high pitched percussion, and with my RS1 (and flats) I can listen to this song louder than with any of my other tweaked Grados... and I tweak Grados to lessen this very harshness at higher volumes... by tweak I mean I use weird pad setup and scotch tape.
The song in question:
Oh yeah and about vintage, now that I have an actual turned-pink SR200, I can talk a bit more about it.
Indeed these are only on the oldest Grados, but strangely the RS1 and the SR325 which came after all of the SR100-200-300 also have them sometimes, but sometimes they don't either. Actually just go read that the RS1 classifying guide by Mercuttio to discover that RS1s up to the Classic generation (preceded by respectively Vintage B, A, and S) still had some pink mesh drivers.
Nikongod, also fairly experienced with Grados, think it has to do with the blackening dye of the older non-TTVJ-sold flats. I totally agree with him, but I think it also needed to be special combination of both the older flat pads (which already puts us to before Grado invented the bowls, that was in =~1999) and a lesser batch of silk textile, one that looses it's whiteness with age. I also think that how that combo actually aged as to do with it. The screens would have turned pink over time from either non-usage and resting inside their box in the dark not exposed to atmosphere, or the opposite, full daylight exposure and usage with ear sweat and body oil, cold and hot temperatures, humid and dry climate, oxidation, and what ever possible deteriorating principle because they all accelerating the deterioration of the white of the screens.
Now on for my mini review of this headphone:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/439301/joseph-grado-sr-200-like-new
And it's definitely a pink one... even though not the pinkest.
One owner after FallenAngel and before Vincent who sold it to me had the torn right pink mesh replaced at Grado Labs, and the results are this:
With a headphone from my SR100HP1000 on the right but don't mind this thing, that's another story altogether, lol... and a huge story
This SR200 (and by the way I have closely listened and inspected, only the mesh was replaced, not the driver behind it) is by far my weakest Grado can.
It has to do with, I think,
A) the pre-2009 "i" upgrade shell, which barely provide any back acoustical chamber (which I believe as much as John Grado is effectively improving the sound)
To me this short cup design is inferior in that it isn't so much about maximizing sound quality more than serving its purpose of holding the drivers at ear level.
B) the fact that older drivers simply aren't as refined, full sounding, bassy and detailed as are the newer drivers. Yep, these guys have made a lot of headphones and learned from their errors.
From the experience of listening to this SR 200 and with every pad considered, in comparison with my four other Grados, I am thinking the older / oldest drivers aren't the best one.
Like I said they are pronouncedly different (and probably not just the SR325is-HF2 different type of difference) from all of my other Grados which are all better and more similar sounding between them. They sound thin and lacking, and more like an "old can" and definitely more like a tin can. They have amazing extension and performance in the highs, that I give to them, but are definitely lacking in terms of punch, bulk.
I find them good to use some low music playing "like" in the background while concentrating on something else like your homework, but bad for audiophile eyes-closed focused listening, or speedy thread making on Head-Fi used as a stimulant.
I use them with taped bowls to increase bass, details, and fullness, which strangely this mod does accomplished even more for the SR200 (simply because they are poor, so they jump in the medium class easily) (I like to say for my weakest headphone my strongest pad).
With this pad and of course PX100 pads under to improve comfort (because older Grados have less springy / stiffer headbands, but not the kind of stiff you find on a HP1000 one) they perform a lot better and I begun to like them, and pick them more often. They still sound like someone set all the EQ band to - 8 dB in my Foobar but that makes up for the less fatiguing Grado I own and I like that when I do full days or full weekends of studying, listening to them for 8 hours straight with a lunch break in the middle.
So that's it... even though I talked about (and a bit against) these drivers without even knowing how they sounded, in this thread in my latter posts, now I can speak with more certitude.
Comparing vintage (pink vintage) to ultra-white SR325 and up drivers, I will say that:
They sound different, it is cool and fun for a while if you hold something against the modern Grado sound (modern grado sound = both my 2001 RS1, my 2005 SR325i and even my black SR325 (year 1996-1997? I can't ask the original owner) (but this contrast a bit with its exaggerated kickdrum equivalent-to frequency band, upper bass?)) but if not, you will find them pointless in comparisons to nowadays offering, and simply lacking.
They have heart, substance, they have a unique different type of Grado house sound, yes all of that stuff, but they remain an over-hyped (and I pretty much just myth-busted it) collector item (you pay more for less, and you're already paying a lot for that Grado hand-designing-molding-building for any model from any time, I say).
And having said that I still think that if you cross out my argument A) (in trying to explain why they sound inferior, above) and put the pink OR the old driver (after applying some technological improvements and learned experiences) into an higher-ended, recently invented and larger SR325 or RS1 you could indeed get some great results, and a better "different sounding" than the one I have in my SR200.
I wish for Head-Fi to learn to talk about a Grado driver referencing to its year more than to its mesh color, as there are a lot of a variation in the latter, which becomes a confusing indicator of how they really sound and how old they are. I believe the year it was made, even though you can't always keep track of that, is more reflexive of the real age of your headphone, and of how it will sound after you have purchased it on Head-Fi. I think John Chaipis (R.I.P.) have made all sorts of mesh textiles, made from many different fiber material (nylon, that stuff), and was inconsistent at applying to say, one batch of of RS1s, up until the classics ones. So you get a newer RS1 with pink driver that an older one doesn't have, which is very misleading. Normally it should be opposite but I guess it took a while to Grado to realize their headphones were changing colors, before they fix it (they did stop using the pink-transitioning meshes in around year 2000, so I'll say that I don't think any Grados drivers made after that will ever turn pink). Here, in enumerating the colors of meshes I know of, from all the pictures and all that I could read/learn about them, how changing it can be (more than you think) : we have
Gradient:
-- Fully black (transparent, grainy, high quality) : all of those who share the HP1000 drivers, easy to tell
-- Black slowly turning to pink : RS1 in Mercuttio's thread, image link : http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i271/dapietri/goldletterpinkdriver.jpg?t=1239898074
it is the least white of all the non HP1000 Grados, doesn't look white at all.
-- Hot pressed white (some say it's because it has been used a lot, but my SR325i who has lived most of its life in its box have these) : the kind of mesh that is clearly white over the holes/gaps but clearly black (or transparent) when on the wall surface. A hot pressed RS1 in Mercuttio's thread : http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/975/img0280mn6.jpg
-- And the continuum:
-- from half hot pressed white (less used? nah, but definitely whiter http://www.headphone.com/productphotos/large/0020091000_3255.jpg) to extra-bleach, thick-fiber-looking ultra white (so much you have trouble photographing or looking inside for the driver), white as much over the holes than on the hard surface.
The black ones do not exist anymore, I'm pretty sure... and yes, I read that both kite7 and pcf already knows about that stuff too
.
So yeah, just stick to the year it was made / purchased, of the "i" in the name if that's what you're looking for. The pink driver is just a lower quality mesh, or a lower quality pad, or something else, it only has "symbolic" (invented) value, it isn't always a sign of an older driver, even though it increases the chances of finding one. Older drivers than some with pink transitional meshes might be covered by a white mesh too... Take that into consideration if you ever want to buy a "vintage" Grado second hand. Like I said, you could encounter some What stuff, like when I found out that my black SR325 sounded just as good, if not better, as my gold SR325i, a headphone that got out 7-8 years and two iterations later.
Oh yeah, Grado's age. They have sold HP1-2 and 3s from 1990 to 1994. I don't remember where but I have read that the headphone was designed in 89, but Bob Ludwig commented (there
http://www.joegradosig.com/hp1000creation.html) that he have owned his HP1000 pair for 25 years... surely it's a rough approximation. My red SR100 which I believe is the second headphone ever made by Joseph Grado's Labs (I picked a name, lol), because it shares properties with the HP1000 (it's drivers, headband, and letter paint color, red), was purchased at this date 02/11/1993. But I'm just assuming here that John Grado started by making cheaper alternatives to HP1000s by doing the SR100 first, then the SR200, then the 300.. following that order, then the SR325, RS1, etc going up in numbers. But definitely, the SR100-SR200-SR300 containing HP1000 drivers were all made very early, they are mostly equally old.
Grado cartridges and company are much older
but starting from their first headphones they're just as old as I am, not old at all
.
With flash
Without
-- North-West corner my black SR325, second oldest of the bunch, whitest.
-- North, the infamous (
) #1059 RS1 with flats and marvelous APS V3 Black + Furutech quarterinch. I classify its color of Hot pressed white. It is to be noted that feckn_eejit who sold it to kite7 told me he had listen to this headphone A LOT. Everywhere he went, in the street, on business trips, he would listen to it in the hotel room until late before going to bed, purchased in by someone in Edmonton in ~2001.
-- South-West, SR325i, purchased in 2005 by Kwisatz, relatively unused. He told me he was after his K701 all the time and sold it to me after realizing a 300 dollar headphone wasn't worth keeping when you only reach for it one time or so a month. Those screens are just about the same as my RS1... which totally defeats the argument that prolonged uses makes the silk looks more fused with the surface.
-- South-East, the replaced mesh on the right cup of my SR200, you can also see it earlier in this post. This one is kind of an exception. It looks pinker than the others are white on the photo but it is definitely white, and not has hard-hot-pressed as the two other ones in the center.
To put something in between a hot-pressed mesh and a bleached one, I would just insert here all the stock pictures ( by Robert Williams
) of the Grados on their website
http://www.gradolabs.com/page_headphones.php?. The PS500 is the most hot pressed (blackest), the SR225i the less hot pressed, pretty much a bleached one. All of those in between being half hot pressed.
. They have no SN# which is believe is almost a sure sign of Vintage B. Also, it appears to have a noticeably lighter and flexible cable (even though it looks the same appearance wise) than my SR125 and SR325, never felt anything like it of all the grados I've owned. The midrange is already very full with bowls, so I think it was meant to be.
. I owe you for the recable, these are my best headphones and it surely helps in that sense.
