I don't buy the "Grados are good for rock but not so for classical" dogma. I understand the arguments proffered but I think they're bogus. In fact, such arguments are based not on sound but on a perception linked to visuals.
Grados have a reputation as "intimate." Their open-air design reduces resonance at the cost of bass slam, since there's no back to kick against. The bass you get comes right off the driver. Such bass is tight and controlled but not overly oppressive in the "slap 'em in the face" department. This leaves the mids prominent, not necessarily higher than necessary - just not buried by anything. If the mouth of the average Grado were to look more like the K701, you'd have more HF, but the tonal balance would be hollow. Use of the comfies and bowls attenuates the HF, rolling it off into something that balances the tonality of the product. In essence, a lessened bass and a rolled-off top-end give the mids even more prominence.
This brings out a lot of clarity and detail, just not a large soundstage. If there were a visual image to match with the sound, it would be one of intimacy, because you hear the details of the instruments, themselves, not the airy space you'd associate with the concert hall, itself. This is where Grados get their reputation as putting you "in front row." In fact, headphones don't put you anywhere. We're talking about the same recordings, no matter what headphones you use. For in-studio recordings, the mic is placed right up front with the singer or instrument. In the recording process, a totality of up-front recordings are mixed together to give the appearance of a single, live, simultaneously-performed recording. Live-concert recordings are another story. There, you hear the other artifacts of the concert setting - including applause, coughs, floor and wall reflections, et cetera. Such recordings can be quite unforgiving.
While we readily accept the in-your-face mic'ing of rock and pop recordings, it's a harder sell to match an orchestral recording with a "narrow" soundstage. People who go to classical concerts don't want to hear a single instrument. They want to hear the totality. The idea of a presentation that feels like a mic placed in first row is disturbing to more than a few. They want to feel as if they're "up there" in nosebleed, hearing all of it served up like a dozen roses. It doesn't occur to them that concert halls are designed to mix sound, so that the folks who sit in the very back don't get a radically different presentation from those sitting closer to the front.
Concert halls mix sound.
The long and short of it is this: Grados playing classical don't sound inferior. The rock/classical divide is an arbitrary one. Just to use some popular items, you could put on some John Williams (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, Jurassic Park) and never hear anything that sounds like an emphasis on certain instruments. You still hear the totality, what people would hear anywhere in that same concert hall. The only difference would be that the smaller cushions have a small soundstage. You would get less of that airiness that comes from diluting the main event with reflective or additive artifacts (echoes, coughs, et cetera). Because most of the Grado pads damp the highest of the high-end, there's a rolling off that doesn't go with feeling so far removed from the action. With Grados, you're going to hear the center of the presentation, with more devoted to the instruments, themselves, and less devoted to distance from it.
For some, this ruins the ride. They want to feel as if they're sitting on the outer fringes. Such soundstage can be captured by using the jumbo pads. For most Grados, however, this will leave the phones feeling hollow - because it shifts the tonal balance.
