Review: Grado SR60 Headphones

by Steve Pan • 01/31/2007 at 07:17 AM

A major problem with Apple’s iPod does not lie with its hardware. Nay, the most glaring issue is that most users won’t get the full rich sound with the high quality sound chipsets, due to the craptacular nature of the bundled, iconic-yet-useless-and theft enticing earphones. It’s like buying expensive organic food for a sumptuous dinner at Trader Joe’s and heating your ingredients with a $25 toaster oven from K-Mart with Morton’s on the side as seasoning. Quality audiophile gear tends to be exorbitantly expensive, however, often leaving price-conscious shoppers without a midrange product between $5000 dollar headphones made of sub-Saharan rain forest wood or the $25 Compuhut crap brand “Noise Cancelling” clams.
Enter the 70 dollar SR60’s, the entry range headphone of Grado’s Prestige series, marketed to many perspective buyers as a gateway drug of sorts into the audiophile world, where a “good” pair of headphones might run you up a few hundred dollars. For years after it’s 1994 introduction the SR60 line has garnered rave reviews from both serious audiophiles and more debt-free casual listeners, but does it live up to its hype?

Unlike today’s obnoxious and possibly life threatening blister packs that encase most headphones, the SR60 ships in a nice paper and plastic box that slips open to reveal its contents quickly to the user. It’s not an Apple style eye popping origami job, but at least no limbs were exposed to sharp, serrated edges that could possibly hack the skin from your fingers after a careless cutting job. The SR60s sport a noteworthy retro look; it’s 50’s styling harkens back to a day when the common recording format was on a big vinyl discs and computers were 5 ton vacuum tube powered giants that did little but play Pong and tabulate big numbers. As an added bonus, the headphones come with an ?Ǭº” stereo jack plug adapter that allows you to use an electric guitar and other assorted electronics with the SR60’s.
If you’re accustomed to listening to music with the standard iPod earbuds, the difference, especially with well encoded high bit rate files, is startling. What was once just one “blur noise,” a haphazard collection of sounds from various instruments blended together and pureed into an overcooked musical mush, sounds concert-hall style clear with the SR60s. Unlike many other headphones, where some instruments are emphasized at the expense of others, the SR60s maintain a distinct neutrality. Hi-hats and other percussion instruments are distinct and hard-hitting. Listening to an electronic recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony by the Philadelphia Orchestra encoded at 256 kbps VBR might have possibly been the best classical recording I’ve ever heard. The clarity in audio was unmatched by anything else I’ve used before to play audio. I could pick up people sneezing during the recording. The only sound related issue that I had was with bass response. In a few songs they lacked oomph, even with the bass booster equalizer setting enabled in iTunes. The same was true for another song where bass felt watered down, where it should have been blowing my contacts off. After some googling, the audiophile consensus is that the SR80s, which are one notch above the 60s, have better bass for an extra 25 bucks. However, be aware that a pocket amp is “strongly recommended” for the 80s, which are used to produce a “fuller” sound. Also, given the audiophile fascination with burning in headphones for the full effect (e.g. listening to them for 100 hours or more), it’s quite possible that the dynamic drivers on the headphones are not stretched out to their intended, thus affecting sound quality adversely.
There main issue with the Grados are comfort. Though sound quality is excellent, it tends to get hot and stuffy on the ears after an extended listening period. Additionally, the weight might take a while to get used to, especially if you’ve been one to listen to speakers and use earbuds instead of full-sized headphones. Lastly, the cord is long. I don’t mean conveniently long, it’s somewhere around 10 feet long, easily capable of strangling you in your sleep if you aren’t too careful with it, but more realistically, could be a gigantic hassle if you’re planning on using these on-the-go. All in all, it’s a great pair of headphones for the cash value.