Attached Link: Grado Labs Inc.

Ok, this is pretty far off topic, headphones have very little to do with cg. However. Thought I'd let any audiophiles out in this forum know about them. For the longest time I've been calling myself an audiophile. Only 192 kbps mp3's, Building my own amps/tweaking for optimum outputs, building custom equalizers, etc. My uncle is a B&O user. Likewise we get all his old audio equipment. Currently we have two Beolab Penta loudspeakers, $8,000 speakers that frankly aren't worth that much money. But he has it to spend so anything goes. Anyway, I've always compared my headphones to these loudspeakers. Pretty tough call for the most part. I had some B&O portables for a while that sucked. Eventually I moved to sony closed design headphones. Sony MDR-V600's...$120, Very disapointed. Unfortunately the return policy was non-existent. Bloated bass, undefined highs plagued these phones, this problem was slightly lessened by using a dedicated headphone amp. However, they were closed style (part of the problem) so they sufficed for listening in areas where I didn't want to be disturbed or disturb others. For portable use I bought some Koss Portapro's. Exceptional portable headphones for about $40. Very comfortable, fairly decent definition. Definitely not bad. Recently I decided I needed something better than my MDR-v600's, IE something not made by sony. The quest started at a few local Hi-fi stores, I tried out a few sennheisers (was not increadibly impressed btw, they have pretty boomy bass [IE woooffy] and don't have an extreme amount of detail.) I had brought some acoustic cd's with me that had excellent recording quality as well as a crisp full spectrum of sound. Of course I brought some trance, but this sounds good on a lot of cans. After the sennheisers I was handed a pair of Grado R1's... oh my god. Mahogany resonance chambers, huge range, warm crisp detail, punchy bass, I was completely detatched as soon as I started listening. They actually gave me goose bumps. The true test proved itself, at medium volume, about 85 db I could clearly hear the artists fingers sliding across the guitar strings and up at the frets (this was distinguishable, wow), the bass guitarists plucks were pristene in the background, every breath the vocalist took could be heard. It brought entirely new layers to the music, I was amazed. Of course the price tag read $700... *sigh* I wish I read it before I tried them on, I had my wallet out and everything. I hate downsizing and can't appreciate worse phones once I have heard better ones. (IE when I got my first discman I thought the headphones that came with it were amazing, I soon found that they were the worst you could possibly get and now refuse to listen to such contraptions (however elitist that may sound). I had a good salesperson though and asked if Grado had other phones in a lower price range. Sure enough the Grado SR60's 80's and 125's were less pricy, costing (what do you know) $60, $80, and $125. Not bad prices. I tried them all, starting at the lowest, it's far easier to tell a difference going up than down. The SR60's are an exceptional pair of phones, the high end shimmers beautifully, the bass is punchy however the low bass is a little...low.. so I needed something suited to my taste. The SR80's had more clarity overall and bass *score*, $80 was not much for such exceptional phones. I actually liked the $80 grados more than the $200 sennheisers. Probably because the grados are not built for aesthetic appeal. They look like ham radio headsets from MASH. There was an audible difference between the 80's and 125's but believe me it was barely noticeable. For a 50% increase in price you get about a 1% increase in performance. (this is how audio equipment works though, as the price increases you are getting a lesser % increase per dollar. IE the $80-$170 range is great for entry level enthusiests. So, I bought the Grado Sr80 headphones. An steal at that price. You really have to hear these to believe what I am saying. They blew me away. If you do get them though, don't be disapointed by the uncomfortableness at first or the crappy sound, These phones need to be broken in. I left them running white noise at medium volume levels for 40 hours before listening to them after the first time. A HUGE improvement after the break in period (ranges from 30-50 hours for these) The pads are rough at first, but after wearing for a while begin to conform to your ears, as well as the above head strap. So, all in all, go get some grado headphones, even the SR60's are exceptional, possibly the best headphones you can get for under $200 are the SR80's, price/performance wise. Just thought I'd share.