Whether you’ll like this brand of forwardness is a pure preference thing, but it is one of Grado’s signature moves. It is Grado. So, don’t expect massive staging elements and properties. However, do expect very enjoyable imaging overall. The overall height and width factor is average at best. However, the depth of field is heavily improved from some of the other older Grado models. With a driver that small, I would never expect anything huge and neither should consumers. Now, that is not to say the treble is reserved. It isn’t. It is still a bit bitey now and then, but I quantify this into the category of very enjoyably engaging. Paul Gilbert’s 2 Become 1 has a lot of cymbal striking and focus on a forward sounding treble response for the guitar.

Disclaimer: The Grado The Hemp Headphones were sent to us in exchange for our honest opinion. Thank you to Gradoand 4ourears USAfor giving us this opportunity.

The mahogany tone is hand-matched for maximum aesthetic appeal. Warm harmonic colors are also present in your Grado GS1000e headphones. You have the perfect headset when you combine bodied vocals, superb dynamics, and a seamless top end. It includes 50mm dynamic transducers and a new 1-conductor wire for professional sound quality in your ears. Furthermore, the hand-crafted wood on the earpieces and headband, as well as the ergonomic cable design and driver, ensure tight control and stability on higher and lower frequencies. Grado Headphones Buying Guide Grado’s tradition seems like their most important business model is not offering something unique, new or even comfortable for that matter. For years, decades even, Grado lovers who adore the SR-series of old’s house sound (I am one of them) have cried out in the crisp night air, pouting incessantly over certain design elements of Grado headphones that range from cables to the housing itself. I, for one, am baffled as to how a headphone can sound this nice, but refuse to alter in its design over previous models of the past.

Once you pull these babies from their cardboard prison, you’ll find a headphone that looks stereotypically Grado, but with a flourish. Two white earcups dominate the sides of the headphone, crafted from maple and painted a gorgeous, immaculate white. Each earpiece is handcrafted by Grado in Brooklyn, New York from a particular species of mahogany. The wood is carefully treated using Grado’s enhanced drying process to take advantage of the natural acoustic properties of wood for optimum sound quality. These Grados can be driven using the headphone outputs of most home audio systems, or even a portable player or laptop. But they’ll really sound their best with the addition of a headphone amplifier. We find the SR80 lightweight enough to get away with the SR80e’s non-padded headband, but that’s not to say the SR80x’s padding isn’t welcome; it certainly helps maintain a less burdensome listening experience, especially during those multi-hour sessions. And while the headband slider is pretty basic, it’s fit for purpose to allow for a reasonable degree of head adjustment. Grado is a company based on tradition, first and foremost. They’ve not really changed much over the past few decades…however and recently, they’ve released a few new models for us to enjoy. If this is where Grado is heading for the future, sign me up and I’ll be first in line to rate and review anything they dish out for us in the near future. A Brief History in Grado. This is the type of headphones experience that forces us to listen to whole albums during our testing, and before we know it we’re emotionally engrossed in Eilish’s Your Power and stomping along carefree to Therefore I Am. VerdictPlastic ear cup housings and fake leather headband padding finishes off what is quite conspicuously a pretty simple, low-cost construction. While we’d be happy to use them out and about if it wasn’t for the open design, they don’t will you to abuse them – some headphones claim you can stretch their headbands to within an inch of their life without damage. We wouldn’t recommend trying that here. If I were grading the RS 2, I’d give it a “V” for vividness. When I listened to music through these ’phones, I sometimes had the uncanny sense that my brain had been magically hard-wired straight into the mixing console. The glory of this headphone is its pure, ultra-lucid midrange sound, which sweetly melts upward into silky smooth, finely textured highs. Bass is taut, dynamically alive, and offers a good measure of natural warmth, but is somewhat reticent relative to the mids and highs. This is a highly detailed headphone, though never in a showy, “hey-look-at-me” sense; instead, small textural and transient details just happen—without undo effort, drama, or sonic histrionics. Size-wise, the Grado SR60e appear quite similar to headphones like Beats Solo 2. They’re on-ear, so not huge. However, these are not portable in the traditional sense. Please infuse Hemp into every single wood anything you do in the future. This headphone sounds fantastic. It sounds like the older PS500 original but improved.