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Well then, my bad for a misinterpretation. I saw "go there" aimed at vinyl, not Grado cans.

Captain Ned wrote:

You see "sounds like vinyl" as a degrading epithet. Some of us old farts see that as a goal because for us, vinyl sounds more "right" than digital.

Yes, I've thrown down that gauntlet. Heck, the umpteenth coming of vinyl that's happening now is actually causing the construction of new vinyl pressing plants. Ten years ago we were striving to save the few that remained. And yes, I will die a "vinyl firster".

As for cans, I've got a pair. The Shure e500 IEMs are the traveling/airplane rig, backed by a HeadRoom Total BitHead, sourced from a Zune HD64 with 320 kbps MP3s. The desktop rig is a set of Oppo PM-3s driven by an iFi micro iCan sourced from WAV files on an external HD through Foobar2000.

Eh its more like...

Your idea or associations with the "vinyl sound" are based on the players, amps, speakers, etc. you listened to those records on and certain characteristics or sound artifacts that a headphone simply will not add to the sound. I was not intending to degrade vinyl the format/media, nearly all my physical music collection is on vinyl, but rather that its not a meaningful descriptor for a headphone.

On a semi-unrelated note.... have you listened much to your Shure's directly from the Zune and if so what would you say the BitHead does to improve their sound versus direct out from the Zune?

And really... how the music was recorded and mastered matters WAY more than if you're playing it back on vinyl or a 192kbps MP3.

slowriot wrote:

On a semi-unrelated note.... have you listened much to your Shure's directly from the Zune and if so what would you say the BitHead does to improve their sound versus direct out from the Zune?

And really... how the music was recorded and mastered matters WAY more than if you're playing it back on vinyl or a 192kbps MP3.

Zune direct vs Zune/analog/BitHead was essentially the same, though the BitHead clearly had more "oomph". Once I loaded my music on the work lappy and used the DAC in the BitHead, I realized that the BitHead's DAC was not up to the rest of the chain.

Since my music is still on the lappy, I currently run an AQ Dragonfly to the iFi amp to the Oppo cans.

I have also had great luck with Grado and enjoy my 325i cans a lot.

I have a pair of Grado SR225 headphones from a few years ago and I've always thought that they were great. They certainly sounded better than a pair of Sennheiser HD 598s I briefly had and let play for 50 hours to "burn in." I have an AudioEngine D1 Amp/DAC that was powering both. I have a friend who swears by his Senn HD 598s, and to me the sound was very muffled and possessed less bass than the Grados. Just a few months ago I picked up a Logitech G430 gaming headset, hooked it up to my AudioEngine D1, and songs sounded good again. I could hear more detail and nuances in music that was completely missing with the Grados. The timbre of instruments could be heard with much more detail. The Grados lack bass, where the G430 has plently, and until I tried an alternative, I didn't know what I was missing. Listening to jazz I can hear bass guitars and listening to classical I can hear the cellos..all on FLAC, of course. Now I'm saving for a replacement set. I listened to a pair of Audeze for around $800..but it didn't seem to offer much bass response. It was an immense upgrade to anything I've heard, however. I briefly demoed Grado's GS1000 and I wasn't impressed with them either, considering the cost increase. The entire brand just doesn't impress me after being exposed to alternative.

If anyone has a pair of cheaper Grados, I recommend getting an $80 G430 and then putting the Grados in the refuse bin. I haven't used mine since except to let others demo and agree that I wasted my money on rubbish. An $80 Logitech gaming headset should not provide a better listening experience than a $199 pair of Grados. I feel ripped off....

I'm not sure if selling is allowed between members, but if someone disregards everything I've said and wants a pair, PM me. Or even PM me to say I'm lazy for not reading rules about selling. Either way is fine, bros.

And that's your personal preference. You prefer the sound of big bass. I caution you on this. A good pair of cans should be even keeled, they should bring out all sounds. But then again that's my personal preference and opinion.

tanker27 wrote:

And that's your personal preference. You prefer the sound of big bass. I caution you on this. A good pair of cans should be even keeled, they should bring out all sounds. But then again that's my personal preference and opinion.

Yeap. Before I bought my Senn HD595's about 10 years ago (geez...), I did quite a bit of reading over at Head-Fi. You can find endless debates about the merits of every make/model of headphone there, but the most important thing is to determine your own preferences so you know which direction to look.

tanker27 wrote:

And that's your personal preference. You prefer the sound of big bass. I caution you on this. A good pair of cans should be even keeled, they should bring out all sounds. But then again that's my personal preference and opinion.

The bass isn't loud and boomy. It's complementary on a lot of tracks that have basses and cellos. They were almost non-existent on the Grados. Violins and trumpets sound much more complete. It's nice to hear a cello like I remember back in school listening to chamber music performances.

The Egg wrote:

tanker27 wrote:

And that's your personal preference. You prefer the sound of big bass. I caution you on this. A good pair of cans should be even keeled, they should bring out all sounds. But then again that's my personal preference and opinion.

Yeap. Before I bought my Senn HD595's about 10 years ago (geez...), I did quite a bit of reading over at Head-Fi. You can find endless debates about the merits of every make/model of headphone there, but the most important thing is to determine your own preferences so you know which direction to look.

I've heard great things about the HD800s. I wasn't impressed at all with the 598s. The HD 650s seem to have great reviews too. What kind of music do you listen to?

It doesn't really matter but if you want to know its very eclectic; from classical to edm. My Grados have more than enough punchy bass and i'm able to discern individual instruments in what I listen to. (and this is with a null EQ and DAC ) /shrug.

I don't want to further argue about this but its is your POV. You didn't like the Grados, fine. You gave your opinion on them which is very different from mine and others. I am just pointing out everyone has different tastes. Heck even I do which is why I have three separate different cans that I switch from! Hell I laugh at your "gaming headset" I think what a waste of money, what utter, rubbish, why would anyone in their right mind buy such crap. Its possible that you actually like the way it sounds, comfort, company, price, etc. etc. Again my POV and opinion.

tanker27 wrote:

It doesn't really matter but if you want to know its very eclectic; from classical to edm. My Grados have more than enough punchy bass and i'm able to discern individual instruments in what I listen to. (and this is with a null EQ and DAC ) /shrug.

I don't want to further argue about this but its is your POV. You didn't like the Grados, fine. You gave your opinion on them which is very different from mine and others. I am just pointing out everyone has different tastes. Heck even I do which is why I have three separate different cans that I switch from! Hell I laugh at your "gaming headset" I think what a waste of money, what utter, rubbish, why would anyone in their right mind buy such crap. Its possible that you actually like the way it sounds, comfort, company, price, etc. etc. Again my POV and opinion.

I wasn't trying to argue. Perhaps your DAC drives the bass more effectively than my AudioEngine D1 and our experiences are different. Either way, It's not my intention to push my view and/or demean your view, or any person's view. I think most gaming headsets are wastes of money. I got it for $40 and on an amp they are much better than my brothers Astro A40s that are an utter waste. To be in perspective, the headset on its own without an amp is almost useless with volume barely adequate. The internet is full of negative reviews describing that. I'm just describing my experiences with several products, and we all have our own preferences and unique experiences. Again, it wasn't my intention to argue. I'm sorry you felt that way.

tanker27 wrote:

And that's your personal preference. You prefer the sound of big bass. I caution you on this. A good pair of cans should be even keeled, they should bring out all sounds. But then again that's my personal preference and opinion.

It's just that you say this and then like Grado's that drives me nuts. Your claimed preference doesn't line up with your chosen headphones.

Here's an even keeled headphone: http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD650.pdf

THIS IS NOT: http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/GradoSR325e.pdf

Grado's are literally all about mid bass and way, way hot treble. If you like that... then fine. But... ugh. You don't like even keeled phones!!!

Seriously really?? Do you even read your links?

Hell that site RECOMMENDS a set of Grado cans on their Wall of Fame????

tanker27 wrote:

Seriously really?? Do you even read your links?

Hell that site RECOMMENDS a set of Grado cans on their Wall of Fame????

What the hell does that have to do with the Grado's CLEARLY NOT HAVING AN "EVEN KEELED" response? Absolutely nothing. You're diverting the topic yet again because you've been caught yet again not having a clue what you're talking about.

If you like Grado's then fine, clearly many do. But at least know how to accurately describe their sound and your own tastes... good grief. If you like the Grado sound like like mid bass and hot treble. V-shape. Welcome to the freaking club, many do like that sound. At least describe it right.

Srsly_Bro wrote:

The Egg wrote:

Yeap. Before I bought my Senn HD595's about 10 years ago (geez...), I did quite a bit of reading over at Head-Fi. You can find endless debates about the merits of every make/model of headphone there, but the most important thing is to determine your own preferences so you know which direction to look.

I've heard great things about the HD800s. I wasn't impressed at all with the 598s. The HD 650s seem to have great reviews too. What kind of music do you listen to?

Never used the 598's specifically, but I always assumed they were roughly the same as the 595's. What were you using to drive them? I'm not overly snobbish about audio equipment like some, but I do demand a certain level of performance, and the 595's don't leave me wanting. I listen to a complete range of music all the way up to full classical symphonies (as well as all my gaming), so I prefer a flat, unbiased sound.

Guys, come on, relax a little. Aren't we supposed to be better than the average audiophile community?

I can't speak for higher-end stuff, but my moderately-modded SR80es have a very flat FR band for something in their price range. There aren't more than two or three decibels of variance anywhere between the bass rolloff and the standard-issue Grado 2 kHz resonance, the 2 kHz peak is a fraction of what it was (thanks to mods), there's a mild but wide dip after that, and then treble above 5 kHz averages only two or three decibels over the mids. Before mods, the 1 to 4 kHz range was a lot messier, but the bulk properties were pretty much the same.

FWIW, I'm aware that older stuff (i-series instead of e-series) had higher-Q (narrower) bass and hotter treble. I still doubt any Grados have enough bass to be described as v-shaped, though (and yes, I have listened to others).

Also FWIW, I don't like stock Grados all that much. It's when the 2 kHz resonance is modded out that I think they become pretty great.

I'd love to see your measurements.

I don't have the data handy and I'm a bit busy at present to be recompiling it, but I'll post it here (with explanation of methods) when I get a chance (probably later this week).

I've been using a pair of Grados for about 20 years now and they still sound great. Subjectively, I like them better than other cans I've tried. It's also cool to go down to the factory in Brooklyn and talk to the people there; can't do that with most big brands made overseas.

There's subjectivity in the audio world, but if you're serious about good headphones, Grado deserves a spot in your listening tests.

slowriot wrote:

I'd love to see your measurements.

And this is the problem. We can stare at charts and graphs until we are blue in the face but that really does not play out in actual listening. EVERYONE has varying degrees of hearing loss whether it be from age or just generally ignoring things that are destructive to hearing loss. This all plays into how any set of cans sound toward an individual and no two combinations thereof are the same.

I started this thread proclaiming Grados customer service was excellent and that over the years my old set of Grados just got better. (Besides name another company that would send you a broken part for free, not very many!) And recommending that if by chance someone is mulling them over to give them a chance. period. And now its turned into a crapfest. So thanks.

tanker27 wrote:

And this is the problem. We can stare at charts and graphs until we are blue in the face but that really does not play out in actual listening. EVERYONE has varying degrees of hearing loss whether it be from age or just generally ignoring things that are destructive to hearing loss. This all plays into how any set of cans sound toward an individual and no two combinations thereof are the same.

I started this thread proclaiming Grados customer service was excellent and that over the years my old set of Grados just got better. (Besides name another company that would send you a broken part for free, not very many!) And recommending that if by chance someone is mulling them over to give them a chance. period. And now its turned into a crapfest. So thanks.

You keep conflating qualities of yourself as qualities of the headphone. You need to separate them. Otherwise all you're giving people is useless-to-them subjective impressions. If you're hearing a headphone with clear treble emphasis as not having that then at minimum you need to inform your readers because your impressions are clearly impacted by YOUR LIMITATIONS and are likely not useful to a wider audience.

People love to treat audio as if it some kind of super special thing. Which is hilarious. Does the "but but you can't see over 60 FPS!" line of thinking make you believe graphics card reviews should be almost entirely subjective too? What about monitors? Want to throw out the measurements there too because some people don't see the same?

@slowriot -

"Above and beyond" customer service after the warranty expires is objectively good. Preference for open-air is obviously a situational and personal thing, but he explained why that matters to him. The only purely subjective impression in the post which started this thread was his statement that they are "comfortable".

His first reply to you specifically mentions his "listening tastes", so he acknowledged right up front that it was a subjective evaluation.

WTF is your issue?

 I used to have a pair of AKG K240 phones. They were very detailed and you could hear stuff almost nothing else would reveal. The bass was rolled off pretty high up and I did not like listening through them all that much. Sold them to friend for his home studio setup, which they, of course, were perfect for.

 Grados sound good, they are not studio monitors and are designed to be nice to listen to, not to reveal anything that might be there.

 I don't like phones all that much, but they do make your environment, irrelevant.

just brew it! wrote:

@slowriot -

"Above and beyond" customer service after the warranty expires is objectively good. Preference for open-air is obviously a situational and personal thing, but he explained why that matters to him. The only purely subjective impression in the post which started this thread was his statement that they are "comfortable".

His first reply to you specifically mentions his "listening tastes", so he acknowledged right up front that it was a subjective evaluation.

WTF is your issue?

1. Thread started life as unpaid advertising. The bar for a praise thread for a company should certainly be higher than being sent a small plastic bit that cost a few pennies, no I don't find them doing that outside of warranty impressive. Companies do these things precisely because it costs them virtually nothing and gets these types of threads/posts aka unpaid ads across the Internet. Why an ad supported site (uhm... business) wants that happening on their platform is beyond me.


2. I have not been critical of the Grado's being open-back (why would I? All the best headphones are open). Nor have I been critical of Grado's comfort.


3. I have been critical of characterizations of the Grado sound that are out right false. These are not subjective matters. You cannot call a headphone which measures bass light with a treble emphasis as "even keeled" with any kind of validity. The amount of bass/mids/treble presence are not subjective things.

And people are not hearing these things significantly different either unless they have substantial hearing damage. (And wouldn't you call into question the usefulness of impressions of a headphone from someone with such hearing?) Perceptual differences are simply not this large outside of some kind of loss/damage.

People often, and I've seen it in basically every audio-related topic on TR, conflate their preferences with perception. We do have the potential to have significant different tastes. You can like treble emphasis, I can like bass, and the dude over there might like a response that's nearly flat. I'm not criticizing these preferences. I am criticizing the continued conflation of one's preferences with one's perceptions. It is on this issue I have most critical and the protectionism the admins/mods have given to this... allowing it to continue to make most audio-related advice here poor.


I have made the above points already. I hate having to make points like number 2 because they only have to made when people don't read closely. Want another example? Go read the exchange between TwoEars and Captain Ned and try to legit tell me how they're related beyond the word "vinyl" being one of Ned's trigger words. That's this thread. A whole bunch of people talking past each other. A whole bunch of the "but but guys I too have also only heard a couple of headphones and the best headphone I've heard is in fact the best headphone I've heard." Great discussion, really glad we throw out measurements and science in exchange for impression from these people who've heard maybe one or two good headphones ever.

I'm done. See you guys on the flip side or something.

slowriot wrote:

I'm done. See you guys on the flip side or something.

You should have been done nine posts ago. Again thanks for the thread crap. Bye Felicia.

 Superbestaudiofriends. Awesome, a small look round and I'll guess they are about as useful for audio, as South Park's super best friends are for religion.

 As an audiophile for many decades I have been there. These mock everything subjective, places, only prosper because the actual quality of modern audio devices is generally quite poor and the patrons have only heard crap. 'We can measure the garbage' ... great, maybe another time.

I just got through making this, so I might as well post it:



It was done by adjusting the amplitudes of a bunch of sine waves until they all sound the same volume, then inverting the resulting amplitudes and converting to dB. This does mean it's adapted to one person's hearing (not preferences, just hearing), which could be good or bad depending on the use - it's great for creating EQs, if you like such things, but that does make it imperfect for comparison like this. FWIW, I'm young and I think my ears are normal/good. 12.8 kHz is solidly in my hearing range (I believe the drop-off there is entirely the headphones' doing), but 16 kHz barely isn't (so I didn't include that one).

I will say these results aren't quite what I remembered, mainly in that I remembered there being a lot more treble and in slightly different places. I wonder if it's a break-in thing; they do seem more laid-back than they used to be, and last time I did this kind of testing they were pretty new.

Even if your hearing is in very good condition the frequency response curve of your ears is far from flat, and also varies based on the amplitude of the test signal (i.e. it will be flatter at higher volumes). A frequency response curve based on both the characteristics of the device under test and perceived loudness is nearly impossible to draw any meaningful conclusions from, since you can't disentangle the response curve of the device from that of your hearing.

Certainly, that's why I said it's imperfect. My experience with it is that I get results very close to ones published elsewhere, though, and I've certainly found this stuff very useful.

There are a couple of ways to go about creating it. Audibility would result in a very mid-heavy curve. I use comfort - similar volume roughly equals similarly comfortable to listen to. That uses high-ish volumes where the human ear's response curve is much closer to flat, though of course it still isn't quite. I also check against 20-20k sweeps at different volumes for plausibility, and do the same against other headphones I know about to ensure my ears aren't having a weird day. (20-20k sweeps are a much more common tool in my book, but they are much less precise and it's tougher to communicate their results.)

Another factor is that with good equipment like this, measurement error is likely to be much higher as a percentage of the results. I certainly wouldn't do this on HD800s or LCD-Xs and expect anything directly useful. Most often when I do this, it's to find equalization that makes bad systems less so, and with a more "interesting" FR band, it's not ambiguous at all. At least for my use of this stuff, when it starts to get ambiguous in the slightest, that's a happy sign that I'm dealing with good gear.