6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Dynamic, detailed, and natural sounding headphones
Date of Review: Oct 23, 2000
This is the headphone who demands perfection in sound without going too overboard in price. This headphone is not cheap and may not look like much, but offers amazing sound for the money.
Once broken in, this is one amazing sounding headphone. The sound is balanced, full, natural, clear, incredibly detailed, and just hair warm. I believe it takes 2 months of continual play to fully break in. It sounds significantly better after 3 weeks of continual play.
Details, details, details. You will be able to hear pages turning, chairs moving, etc. in classical cd's. You hear every slight detail in the singers voice. This really allows the emotion of the song to come through. Of course it makes poor recordings hard to listen to.
The bass sounds very balanced, not overdone. The quality of bass is amazing: tight, defined, fast, and deep. Drums sound real (not just a muddy monotonous boom). String Bass sounds like a real string bass. The midrange is liquid and smooth. Voices come through with clarity and emotion. Audition a cd with some good vocals when giving this headphone a shot. The highs are crisp and clear yet not harsh or shrill.
Comparison to other Grado's:
The RS-2 is just a hair smoother than the SR-325. The SR-325 actually has a bit more detail and it sounds just a *tad* brighter. The SR-325 and RS-2 are very very similar sounding. The SR-325 sounds fuller and has much better and deeper bass than either the SR-225 or the SR-125. I owned the SR-225 for about 3 weeks, but was a little disappointed with the bass response and they sounded just a bit thin. I returned these and bought the SR-325 which was exactly what I was looking for.
Comparson to Senn HD-600 and Senn HD-580:
First of all I'm not going to say one is better than the other. Both Grado and Senn make some might fine sounding headphones. Senn is more comfortable than Grado's. I don't find the Grado's uncomfortable (I wear them about 8 hours per day with no problem). You should try them on before buying them. I found that bending the headband just right makes the grados very comfortable. Ok now the sound. The Grados sound a little more dynamic and exciting. The music is a bit warmer and the vocals come through with more detail and emotion. The Senn's are slightly more laid back. The Senn's sound a bit brighter than the Grado's. The soundstage is larger with the Senn than the Grado. If you get the Senn you *must* get a have some quality electronics to drive it because they are a 300 ohm load. Portables will not drive it load enough and the sound you do get won't sound too good. Grado's on the other hand will sound loud enough on most portables and will sound great (with a headphone amp they sound fantastic). Most people will agree that Grado's sound best on rock and Senn's on classical. While this is true, they both sound great on all genre. The grado's just edge out the Senn's for rock. The Senn's edge
out grado's for classical music.
