I have no idea how you people can hate RS1e for me its brilliant headphone, longer it plays performance rise, midrange is clearer than hd600 I love them beautiful piece
I’ve got lots of headphones from Sennheiser, hi-fi man, Shure, Audeze, AKG, and I love the sound of the Grado rs2e. I just completely 100% disagree with the headphone show on the evaluation of the rs2e, though I admit I’m not a huge fan of the RS1e. I agree that the comfort is not the greatest and the cable should be more easily removable.
@@completestrangeronline7284 well after some time I have sold my RS1e probably never gonna touch Grado again unless they change that cheap build and cable but thats only maybe because I have better headphones
I remember Grados being the 'thing' when I first started checking out headphones and sites like Head-Fi around 2008/2009...the SR-80s were recommended as a low-priced, big step up from cheap $10 headphones back then. Terrific stream, enjoying this format, and really appreciate what you and Chrono are doing on this channel...such a great wealth of information and no-hype, no-nonsense reviews!
I'm of the Grado camp. Owner of the RS2e reviewed here. True, they are not for everyone. However, what they do well keeps them relevant and a staple in the headphone genre. Heavy bulky headphones like most of the planar are simply a no go for me. Regardless, how great they may sound? If you have to be stationary in a Gurney to enjoy them they become useless quickly. Granted, the Grado thick cabling can feel like straps at times. I've worked around that with a simple clothes clip. The foam ear pads aren't the kindest. Washing and softener rinsed was recommended as remedy. The Grado RS do need break-in hours to fully smooth the peaks and appreciate their quickness. Then their bass presence, articulation and harmonic integrity will not have the listener missing the thunder present in a pair of closed backs like the Stellia or the Fostex Ebony. I'd conclude with the minimal Aesthetics, mahagony and feather weight of the RS2e at $495 was a package for me. Personally, I think the Focals $4k Utopia are the the standard open-back. But, I could happily live with Stax L-700 Mk2 set-up and never miss the Utopia while still affording the Ebony and the RS2e!
@@justina9914 No. I believe people who hear $495+ Grados misconstrue transparency with brightness? I will admit owning their SR325is. Which are no doubt treble happy and bass lite! A terrible, uncomfortable combination marded by excess weight. Their RS2e were my ah ha moment with Grado. It all came together.
I own the RS2e and play them through the Chord Mojo / amazing headphones... I love their 80s look too... so there, there is a reason why Grado has been around and will continue to be... cheers! many headphones folded over time... Grado continues!
Thanks for your wonderful insight rich review. Found your channel a month ago, and it’s truly a goldmine of information. During your review I came to think that the Grado RS 2E maybe could be recommended to senior citizens who listen predominantly to bass light sources like spoken podcasts. Senior people say above the age of 75 might benefit from the raised treble. I know it might sound like I am making jokes about about audiophiles needing hearing aides. But no I am not. I am 60 years of age and don’t need headphones with a tilted up treble. Actually I hate it and prefer headphones with a subdued treble, but who knows what I need in 15 years time? Greetings from Denmark
@@StrangerInParadise58 Hi Patrick. Can you elaborate a bit on the sound difference between these two models. It seems like they are almost identical. But then do their sound differ? And which one do you prefer?
Paying attention to the type of compensation, and smoothing(!) applied to the measurements is something I learned the hard way. I once bought an Audeze LCD X, expecting it to sound fairly neutral based on the measurements. However, in reality it sounded very muffled to me. Only when I started to pay attention to the measurements more closely (thanks to you mainly) I realized that the mids were extremely recessed (up to 15dB) between 1.5k and 5k. I find the combined harman response curve you use extremely helpful. With that knowledge back then I personally would not have bought the LCD X. Keep up the good work!
you prolly dont give a damn but does anybody know a way to get back into an instagram account? I was dumb forgot the account password. I would appreciate any tips you can offer me.
@Talon Kylan thanks so much for your reply. I found the site on google and I'm trying it out now. I see it takes quite some time so I will get back to you later with my results.
I own a Grado RS2e headset. They didn’t sit on me at first but over time I got hooked on them and started abusing, listening louder and longer. I have tinnitus because of them, but after *ucking there is no remorse (Sorry for the vulgarity, I think the comparison is perfect). Those two years gave me indescribable pleasure but at a very high price in the end. I had a lot of very expensive headphones but I only heard that quality sound but not music like with the RS2e with which I would get completely lost and enjoy endlessly. I mostly listened to Blues, Hard Rock and a lot of Metal at the time. I also own an HD 650 that you compare to them. I agree that they sound excellent but they don't draw me into the music even close to RS2e. And the goal of things is to serve man and not for man to serve them. Just people please don’t overdo it with the volume and time spent listening to Grado. This warning is written on each box of headset Grado labs. For future Grado owners; I was a fool, don't be too, Grado provides the greatest pleasure at low to medium volumes, but when they take you and when you drink a glass of wine, you will normally turn up :) Greetings from Croatia!
Not a huge fan of the RS1e (sounds kind of veiled to me), but I love the RS2e, it is the Sennheiser HD 600 of the Grado line. I think we have different tastes or hear things differently, but I still appreciate your stuff.
Review Emu Teak pls. Crinacle says it's up there with the Ananda when it comes to technicalities. Curious about your opinion and description of their sound.
Thanks for the suggestion. It is so difficult to find any information on this bad boy. Worse, it is to be imported from Singapore so no chance to trying out before purchase either. I found a guy based in the UK who reviewed it and did a decent job but since I haven’t seen any other headphone review from him I have no reference point for his preferences. I am so tempted to buy it to pair it with Anandas as a closed back alternative. Would love to see this review either here or at Joshua’s channel.
A bought the Emu Teak directly from Singapore. Decent sound sig... but not as good as the Ananda imo. Also didn't like the comfort of the Teak. Sold them
@@JTB-- Thanks for your input. I got them last week and loving the sound. I have also bought Lawton pads which should improve the comfort and soundstage. I think I am going to keep them.
When I was a Head-Fier many, MANY years ago I owned almost every Grado up to RS1 and even Alessandro MS-1 for good measure. The best one that I liked was the HF2 head-fi special edition, kinda regret selling it. Anyway, I was a fan of Grado sound because it really made heavily distorted guitars sing in a mean and aggressive way, I loved it. I did own other headphones too, AKG K601 and Sennheiser HD600, all three big Beyerdynamic DT-xxx models but they did not inspire me for long and I always returned to Grado. That said, ever since I got my Hifiman HE-500 I pretty much saw the error of my ways, it just sounds so damn good in every way. :D But I still own SR225 and I like to revisit it once in a while.
Always a riot how you rant about the build of a wooden and leather 1970s kind of construction but your favorite Sennheiser 6-series are basically a cheap, plasticky 1990s design. Likewise the Senns are a joke for bass extension but the critique of same is sharper here.
The rs2e is overpriced & not the best build quality for $495 but I kept mine because some music simply sounds more enjoyable/dynamic with them in spite of their drawbacks. I wouldn't want them as my only pair of headphones admittedly. I also like the WWII design even though in keeping with the war theme the ear cushions may have been designed by a Nazi war criminal. Unfortunately those torture cushions sound better on the rs2e than the G-cushions. The fact you can mod the hell out of them is really appealing.
I'm so glad that my ears love RS1e no matter what other people say :) even with G-cush they sound better for me 😅 torture L-cush suck all the way. Love that airy sound, vocals are like magic. For bass I have other headphones
I love Grado headphones but I've never been able to understand the RS1 (RS1, RS1i, RS1e). I owned a pair for less than a week and I changed them for the GS1000e. For the music I listen to (jazz, classical, ambient) GS are fine if you use a decent headphone amplifier. Without an headphone amplifier they just can't sound good to me. Great review, without simple impressions but with something like measurements with which we all can see what the problems are. Changing cables on a pair of Grado isn't so difficult but I hope they make the cables detachable and interchangeable.
I got my RS1e and didnt bought gs1000e simply because I dont believe that they are so much better than what I have, would be shame to pay a lot of money and gain 5% performance
I do enjoy my modded sr60 with g cushions and Beyerdynamic headband, but I would never recommend it as a first headphone. I never listen to it for over 1 hour.
I still like the concept of a live stream review but guess I was a bit disappointed when it came to the Q&A section as it veered way off topic. Possibly because once you got through with your tepid review of the Grado's people didn't really have many comments/questions on the product. Perhaps if a more compelling product was chosen a live stream review would work better.
They aren’t the best, or my go to headphones, but they are hand made in Brooklyn and I try to support local businesses. Plus classical sounds pretty decent.
Exactly. Thx for that. My response was getting a bit wordy. So, I omitted that very important fact. Grado is not a fly by night run and operated outfit. Grado is well respected family owned and operated business over 3 generations currently. Steve G. and others have done some interesting tours right in their Bklyn, NY plant!👍
Jamie Smith Thank you just the same. My response started out a whole lot more wordy, but I thought better of it... Grados have something other companies can’t buy, the Grados have something that, in my world counts and is certainly worth mentioning. In the age of outsourcing every job to other nations, companies like Grado stand for something we use to have. Integrity... Counts for something to me.
Hello and thanks for your reviews. Do you know where I could find a frequency response curve of the grado gs1000e ? Is there any comfortable replacement ear pads for this headphone ?
Haven't heard the RS1e or RS2e, but I do own the original RS1. It's a fun headphone that can sound really good on certain rock recordings, albeit in no way neutral. Strongly recommend replacing the bowl pads with flat pads, which used to be standard on their older early '90s headphones such as HP-1, SR-200 and so on. The flat pads yield substantially increased bass but reduced soundstage. Most importantly from my perspective, they tame the strident frequency response that you get with the bowls. Grado doesn't make flat pads anymore, but you can buy replicas from Todd the Vinyl Junkie, which are apparently identical to the original Grado-made ones. In fact, I had my HP-1 serviced by Joe Grado about 15 years ago and he was impressed by the TTVJ pads. Regardless of which pads you use, unfortunately they're physically uncomfortable to wear for more than an hour or two. The pads also start to fall apart after a few years. I've been through multiple sets. Fortunately the pads aren't very expensive. The original RS1 has a black headband. The brown RS1e headband looks pretty ugly to me. Disclosure: I'm not affiliated with any of the above companies. Btw, if I'm not mistaken, the $695 price for the RS1e is the same as the original RS1 retail price ~25(?) years ago, although adjusting for inflation it's about half as expensive as it was then. $695 was a crazy-high price for headphones at the time!
While I do think that Grados have a pretty unique tonality to them and might do well as flavor headphones in a collection, I've never seen their products as being in any way competitive, or recommendable as someone's only headphone to own.
@@provisionalhypothesis True. I have both. Rarely do I listen to my HD-600. Even with slight mods like a custom cable and removing the foam. They still need Eq to make them listenable for any length of time. Plus they're big. Even then the bass gets muddy when raised. I'll take their Momentums over the 600s all day any day! My RS2e are superior in every other way musically to HD-600. RS2e are Just engaging! It's all about the transients. Polite headphones are analogous to listening to MP3 recordings. Lifeless.
@@provisionalhypothesis I have yet to hear any planars I want to live with? I'd take Stax L-700 ll over any I've auditioned hands down. Hifiman Ananda on up are impressive. But get quite bulky and heavy as they increase in price. I tweak the low end (32hz) on my RS2e & the bass drop is satisfying with plenty of harmonics content unobscured that most cans simply can't reveal. I've even tried DT-1990, known for detail but lacked the full harmonic representation of instruments? IMO However, I do desire a pair of Fostex Ebony when they become available again? My reference cans are the pricey Utopia & Stelia. Everything I've mentioned compares to those two. Lastly, RS2e must be properly broken in. I guess that might apply to most I've mentioned here?
@@provisionalhypothesis I've heard about the bass reputation of planars. Compared to Stelia or Utopia I honestly didn't experience anything to write home about? RS2e are $495. Utopia, $4000!!! 10X better? Of course not. But superior in every other way? No doubt! I'm curious? Which planars specifically were you referring to?
@@provisionalhypothesis Oh ok. Thanks. I've read articles on the Empyrean. I actually really like the style too! I will also have to give the others a relisten. Their bulkiness were always a deal breaker for me though.
@@jamiesmith6838 planar bass for my taste is not really superior, there are dynamic drivers that can handle bass like a true champions, not many planars can be driven by tube amps those who can probably are the best at bass reproduction
I would be interested in a review of the sr60 since it is not any worse but only about 80€ You do need to swap the pads since the stock pads front dampen and destroy detail
Vox player for iOS has a 10 band EQ in their premium version. I used this before I switched to Android as it was o e of the better flac players available a few years ago. Also can you share your Sundara EQ settings. I'm still learning how to EQ in Peace.
Hello! I own these headphones rs2e ! Tell me which hi fi player is not expensive to buy for them? Or a portable amplifier? On an iPhone, they don't open by sound, do they?
My Grado RS1e's took about 200 hours to break in. Let them play for another 100-150 hours come back. What DAC are you using and amp? I have a Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ with an SBOOSTER power supply going into a power conditioner and a smoother sounding PASS LABS HPA-1 with an Audioquest NRG-Z3 power cable. They sound better to me than my Hifman Sundara that I feel wraps over my head more and has not as nice as a midrange and have a little bit more detail than my ZMF Aeolus that have a more relaxed mids and highs but not as much sub-bass as either of them... Grado's are not bass head headphones. It is also light and easy and comfortable once you stretch the headband wider to clamp the way you like. Plus they are easy to"grab" and go for conferences and zoom meetings since it has that 3.5mm plug. I would give them some time to break in.
Interesting, about the break in - can you pls. explain what exactly changed? Second question: you measured that, or with your ears so so based on your hearing experience? Thanks in advance....
They do not need a dac to drive as the headphones are easy to drive. And because of the way the sound is,more volume is painful. Pity. I hated them for the first 2 months with the stock pads. Changed the pads and enjoyed them for 6 months before selling
@@74neverlast No I didn't measure. I just put them aside for 2 weeks and let my computer run them. I have 2 headphone amps off a preamp. Basically things tightened up..Midrange came out better, treble not as peaky, bass tighter and more pronounced. Grado recommends at least 48 hours...No way it's more like 150-200. They are like little speakers and need to loosen up.They still won't have the low end of a Sundara but won't be as "bad!" These are more for convivence for me..light easy to listen to and easy to drive. I have 3 pairs of cans. I will eventually get a pair of Hifiman He1000 v2's next. I also want to sell my ZMF aeolus. I might try something different next like like Kennerton, spirit torino or ZMF verite closed backs.
@@pennfootball71 interesting thank you. It seems some headphones benefit greatly from break in sessions while others are not... like the guys from rtings.com/headphones/learn/break-in found...
The Prius/Grado guy or guys (live comments are gone now) are really persistent aren't they lol. It's weird cause when people are evaluating headphones it seems like they want to be the same as everyone else in their evaluation or they want everyone else to be the same as themselves ("what *I* like is better or best for you as well"), but when you ask people what sort of target they think they like, they would say something that is not close to the Harman targets. There's a lot of interesting psychology phenomena going on
He really struggles to say anything positive about Grado lol. As for an AKM or Burr-Brown dac who really thinks anyone can tell the difference? So many of these reviewers remind me of sommeliers.
I know that the show don't usually try lower end headphone, but will you guys try any of them, like below $500 range? of course they will not be as good as the expensive ones, but some of them have very high cost-performance ratio, some of them are designed to go outside, they might worth reviewing too
Yeah we review that stuff too. One of these in this video is $500. I've also reviewed the Sundara and HD660s, Chrono has reviewed the HD650 and HD600, and SHP9500. So we get there haha.
Actual SPL doesn't matter in REW unless you're showing distortion or a calibrated plat at a given dB. Normally I calibrate at 1khz at 94dB, but run actual sweeps at around 84dB.
Talking about Harmon targets is pointless since everyone will have a different setup and different preferences depending on what they are listening to. Even the range or hearing between person to person is going to skew any standard measurements because real human hearing is nothing like how these tests are setup. This is why I don't like reviews for headphones which are strictly based on some industry standard without being able to reference how it will sound like to different people. 2 hours or pointless IMO
Okay so you said a few things here, but let me just address the human hearing uniqueness thing. It's true we all have different ears, with varying gain factors that impact sound before it reaches the ear drum. BUT, we also have been individually correcting for those gain factors our whole lives. So your unique ear shape is being compensated for by equally unique normalization. The world sounds normal to you precisely because you're brain is correcting for those various different gain factors your ears have. This means that while we may have different preferences, there's generally far more agreement than disagreement when it comes to how things are heard. Secondly, with regards to the Harman target, differing preferences is actually the very thing the Harman research is trying to figure out. I've done a whole video on this and it's worth checking out if you want to learn more about it. But in short, this research proves (convincingly) that certain tunings are overwhelmingly preferred by the vast majority of people, and this is what the Harman target is based on.
Strange! I saw people hate RS1E everywhere in forums. However, the RS1E is one of those legendary headphones in the Chinese hifi community. They emphasize that the amp paired is extremely picky (otherwise the treble is crazy) and the Grado RA1 is one of those better choices!
I'm not too familiar with the Chinese hifi community, but it's interesting if there are different tuning preferences in different regions of the world. I know some IEMs are tuned with this in mind, but there's also academic research that suggests region and background shouldn't matter for tuning preferences.
I own Rs1e for long time now, since I did upgraded my tube amp from budget chifi to higher end Feliks audio Elise with proper quality tubes they got another life. Soundstage is more organic with bass reverb like never before, low end improvement is like day and night, highs are sweeter not that sharp. It is not all rounder headphone but certainly it has very specific way to play music, amount of air that drivers push thru and out is just amazing. I own more expensive headphones but RS1e is special, not recommended with cheap amps thou.
@@TheHEADPHONEShow At least in the Taiwanese community, we have a soft spot for Grados and especially the wooden headphones. A lot of mom and pop audio shop owners have an effection to Grado headphones and sooner or later you'll stumble into a few pairs of Grado once you got into the hobby. The RS-1 series recieved it's legendary status in Taiwan was simply any Grado headphones under that model was easy to use, while the first huge obstacle anyone would meet was the RS-1. The RS-1 series is a quirky, crazy and tricky headphone that just don't sound right unless you do something about it and you'll get a hundred different answers on how to tune the RS-1 depending on the hundred of owners out there. And once you got the answer to your RS-1, you either hate it to your guts or you love it out of pure effection for the time spent on it. The RS-1 the ultimate challenge for newbie audiophiles here in Taiwan and in the end if you can manage to make a RS-1 series sound good to you, you can pretty much make anything sound good to yourself.
