[chef8489]

When I got into this hobby Grado was the all the rave. Now you dont really hear about them. So why have they all but disappeared? What happened?

 

[Sonic Defender]

Grado have a very particular signature that hasn't seemed to keep pace with the changing tastes of the more varied users. They still make excellent headphones that many people love, but they are also rather expensive in some places. Here in Canada the one distributor ruthlessly ensures the prices remain quite high (or so I was told by a dealer). For instance the SR225E is $300 here, that is quite high. I owned a 225i years ago and as nice as it is, I would feel $200 where it should sit, not $300.

 

[kuutan]

Started my journey with the sr60 then moved on to the sr200. Sound quality wise they're still there but ive been dabbing in fostex and hifiman lately...

I don't mind if grado keep the cups but at least change the headband, adjustment rod with the plastic cap (mines broke before) and consider detachable cables. And it's not too much to ask... a decent box for the more expensive models...

It's time to move on with the times... so many quality cans out there, that's why I've moved on from them.

 

[whaiyun]

I bought the SR225e and I like it a lot. Have been using it more than my HD-650 lately...

 

[Beagle]

Grado have a very particular signature that hasn't seemed to keep pace with the changing tastes of the more varied users. They still make excellent headphones that many people love, but they are also rather expensive in some places. Here in Canada the one distributor ruthlessly ensures the prices remain quite high (or so I was told by a dealer). For instance the SR225E is $300 here, that is quite high. I owned a 225i years ago and as nice as it is, I would feel $200 where it should sit, not $300.

-most of their headphones leak too much to be used in public or at work.
-add to that the fact that they have no real competitive closed-back headphones.
-their driver won't work as a closed and they don't seem to want to develop a new one.
-they never followed through with a regular version of the Bushmill's model.
-they've been tweaking the same driver for 23 ears....t They need to reinvent themselves.

And BTW I'm saying all this as a huge Grado fan.

 

[up late]

there are many more headphone options now but grado are doing just fine and they have a loyal fan base. they don't seem to advertise either.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

When I got into this hobby Grado was the all the rave. Now you dont really hear about them. So why have they all but disappeared? What happened?

They're still fairly popular. Just because they don't get FOTM attention doesn't mean nobody's buying them.

At the same time, while people have been buying up headphones that are better in every way - comfort/ergonomics including isolation, smoother and wider frequency response curves, etc - many people still have a Grado as a back up. If anything what's taking a beating in their sales figures are likely at the extremes of the price ranges. At the bottom end you have people buying the SHP9500 for improved comfort or closed headphones over the SR60/80/125. At the top end, you have all these TOTL headphones that are better.

The introduction of cost-effective, high output, low distortion amps like the Lyr and Asgard probably bit into the sales of the RSx too, since now people can get harder to drive headphones. I mean, DAP and RS1 will hit $1000 - some people will get K712 or HE400i with an AudioGD NFB-11 for a lot less. And then you have IEMs - Grado might be easy to drive so having a desktop amp is not necessary, but since it can't be used as a portable due to their lack of isolation, they are at best used as transportables and used when people get to their hotel rooms for example.

If anything, it's not "what happened" to Grado that's the problem, it's "what is not happening." Apart from increasing efficiency and gradually smoothening the driver response, they're in danger of being Lotus 7's with Ford 4cyl engines at a time with Teslas and France banning fossil fuel cars.

 

[panoptikon]

I'm not the one to tell how 'rave' they were, and I know don't know their sale figures, but I believe Grado still have a vital role to play in the state of metamorphosis that the headphone market is in. Grados will never be advertised as engineered by former NASA staff or the like. The company will continue refine their sound signature little by little by the generational shifts, and I have a hard time understanding the critique that they are not 'reinventing' themselves. This is still a business of artistic handicraft that allows for different approaches and niches, also those keeping with tradition. To my ears, Grados still represent great value and I'm very excited to audition the new PS2000e.

Perhaps one could say that, even though their market share differs greatly, that Grado is the Nintendo of the headphone industry. Not really competing with others in terms of techs and specs, but maintaining and perhaps even expanding a loyal fanbase due to their engaging and lifelike sound signature in a vintage credible package.

 

[Gibson59]

Still have a lot of love for my modded SR80e and appreciate their sound for specific music. But as I got more into this hobby and become more willing to spend higher dollars I started putting more value in build quality, packaging, removable cables and comfort. Now I'll say that Grados are not uncomfortable per se, but my ears get fatigued after a while no matter which of their pads I use. I happen to love wood cups so they've got me there, but other elements of their headphone could use some refinement, especially on totl contenders. I really appreciate their story, but I believe they can retain their values and still evolve a bit. At $1000+ I just need to feel like I'm getting the complete package and not make peripheral sacrifices to achieve my ideal sound. Those sacrifices aren't necessary given the numerous contenders at the totl price point.

 

[Sovkiller]

I think that after having heard quite a few from them, I do believe that they belong in the past, design included. I never liked them, never will, and they never developed a closed back headphone, that IMHO is the main reason for the headphones to exist, isolation....the best so far are the HP-01's and they were done by grandpa Grado...so IMO, that indicates that the new generation of the Grado family have not been able ever to come with anything better than Grandpa...
If you like them, good for you...preference is all about.

 

[up late]

I compared the ps2000e to the utopia a couple of weeks ago and it was not embarrassed by it. the salesman preferred the ps2000e actually. grado still has something unique and relevant to offer imo.

 

[trellus]

I love my old Grado SR325i (and Alessandro MS2i, they are made by Grado and just tuned a little differently) -- they have a very unique sound which I truly dig sometimes and I can't imagine ever not wanting a Grado in my headphone stable. However, I do wish they would address some of the comfort (pads!) and build issues, and I loathe the (non-detachable) cables which just inevitably get twisted.

They seem to have a very conservative philosophy and don't, in my opinion, innovate enough, but all the same, I still love the Grado sound, even though I don't like it exclusively by any means.

But they definitely have, it seems to me, a smaller percentage of the headphone audiophile community, but I also think that community is also larger, and because they don't spend money on advertising, I would bet they are doing just fine and profitable because they have enough loyal Grado fans (and I do consider myself one, my opinion that they are too conservative notwithstanding).

 

[obobskivich]

I think Grado has "faded out" at least in the world of head-fi (both this site and more broadly "headphone hi-fi") because they haven't gone down the rabbit hole of "new-release-itis" - they don't have some new product every 6-9 months to play the tradshow circuit, and there's this insipid notion that "newer is always unequivocally and absolutely better" that's been carried over from other tech enthusiasm subgenres into the land of head-fi. Also, there's a lot of aesthetic and practical reasons (which have nothing to do with sound or performance or anything beyond someone's personal preference) that have seen Grado, as well as a lot of other "older head-fi standards" pushed aside - specifically that they aren't:

- Producing "mobile friendly" cans with iOS/Android mis/controls
- Doing anything celebrity endorsed
- Doing everything celebrity endorsed
- Having rappers and producers hawk their products
- Producing closed/noise-cancelling/etc cans
- Massively re-working their industrial design every few years (the last big change was around ten years ago, with the GS-1000 and their move to a truly "full size" platform)

Broadly this doesn't just end with Grado; there are other companies that used to have significant marketshare or brand recognition in the world of head-fi that have also seen their fortunes turn, including Bose (as I understand it, they went from basically dominating the $300+ segment to being a bit player in a relatively short period, mostly due to Beats and later the Beats + Apple merger), Sony, Ultrasone, Beyerdynamic, Koss, and AKG. In all of these cases I think its a combination of not "keeping with the time" (read: following the latest fads), not transitioning from making "headphones" to making "personal and lifestyle audio devices," and more broadly changing tastes for the market. Specifically I think people today have an expectation of isolation, loads more bass, and more connectivity with mobile devices than Grado offers. All of that said, Grado continues to revise existing models, and release new models, and has expanded into online sales (via 4OurEars), so its probably safe to assume they're doing okay financially (what I mean is, I'd be surprised if they announced they were going bankrupt and shutting down tomorrow), and will probably be with us into the future. Certainly they do still enjoy a following within head-fi, but like everything else, we've seen hyper-specialization push everything into a niche, and Grado, perhaps more than any other manufacturer, have been so thoroughly and completely type-cast as a single role pair of cans over the years ("Grados are for rock!") that it isn't surprising they don't hold center stage these days.

Personally I think they could withstand changing *some* of the above things - some of their "we do this as we've always done it" mentality I don't think serves any function (e.g. there's lots of good options for removable cables, closed headphones don't have to be bad, and new designs aren't always bad as long as it isn't done just to appease the tradeshow circuit). On the other hand, I think the tastes of the market in general have shifted, and that's through no fault on Grado's side, nor would I expect them to completely scrap their successful cans just to try and pander to "it needs a rapper's face on it, more bass than a dance club, and tons of chintzy plastic!" What I'd be curious to see is if their overall sales have changed much since the early 2000s - my guess (and this is truly just a guess) is they probably haven't, despite the overall market growing significantly in the same period. As to why I'd guess this - if they were really "in trouble" they probably would be making more dramatic changes to their offerings, both in terms of cost cutting (e.g. outsourced manufacturing, cutting corners on performance, etc) and trying to chase fads to gain sales (as many other headphone companies have done in the last few years).

Also something else, specifically related to Grado, is that they've seemingly withdrawn from participation on Head-Fi (the site) in more recent years, whereas they used to be more actively involved (and had released a few special edition cans exclusively for Head-Fi members). I don't know if this is due to their waning popularity within the community, changes in management/marketing direction, or some other factor(s), but I think it has contributed to their declining visibility on the forums here, for better or worse.

Frankly I'd say its a good thing they're still around, and still mostly carrying on business-as-usual, as it provides yet another option for good cans, and that's never bad. But change wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing either.

 

[trellus]

I can understand why they don't attempt to follow trends and fads, but better designs to improve comfort (better headbands or suspension system) have been around for decades, and detachable cables wouldn't be terribly difficult, either, and there would be no need to change the sound at all.

They could experiment with one new model, rather than risk alienation of existing lovers of their existing design, although frankly I think few would not find the aforementioned changes welcome.

 

[obobskivich]

I can understand why they don't attempt to follow trends and fads, but better designs to improve comfort (better headbands or suspension system) have been around for decades, and detachable cables wouldn't be terribly difficult, either, and there would be no need to change the sound at all.

They could experiment with one new model, rather than risk alienation of existing lovers of their existing design, although frankly I think few would not find the aforementioned changes welcome.

100% agree on removable cables and trying a new model (like they did with GS-1000, which *did* change lots of things), but again I think there's a large sense of "we do it this way because its always been done this way, because its always been done this way" holding things like that back. It may also be cost related - I remember an interview where John Koss once said that a "big" design (I think he was talking about ESP/950) can run into the multiple millions of dollars, and is extremely risky for a smaller company to undertake as you're devoting years of R&D time and potentially "betting the company" on one product that may not be successful. The arguments about comfort are legion and have gone on for years, and I can tell you that there's no headphone in history that does not have an (excruciatingly) vocal minority of users (or people who tried them for 3 minutes one time at a friend's house) who insist they are "medieval torture devices" or otherwise superlatively uncomfortable. I'm not saying manufacturers shouldn't take criticism into account, but ultimately you will never please anyone, and manufacturers that have attempted to do so usually end up re-working their entire product lines every few years, often without achieving any significant "gains" at squelching the complaints (Sony is a really good example of this - look at how dramatically their headband and earpad mechanisms have changed between, say, 1996 (when the RS-1 first came out) and today).