Comments on: Grado SR125 Review

By: Martin Buc

Martin Buc — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 00:37:57 +0000

I’ve had my SR125′s for a few years now, and love them with clean CDs. They do suffer with poor recordings, as these are not smoothed out as with other cans. I have recently acquired a Creative Labs Zen Touch MP3 player, and I believe the sound is possibly better than iPod. I can now walk along to the sound of hours of music at 124 bps, with equalization set to “Rock”. In most cases, the music is superior to my (very ) expensive hi fi at home, and I hear detail never heard before. I have tried 5 other “street style” headphones from TDK, Sony, Philips and Panasonic, as I want to be able to wear a wide brimmed hat to avoid sunstroke – each time I have returned them after a day, because it is just too much of a sacrifice in either tone or detail. The problem is that all other ‘phones just sound like crap. I listen to everything except the garbage “Classic” ( ersatz Chinese bland blancmange) provided with the player, which I have now deleted. The Zen Touch and SR125′s have together given me more pleasure than any other purchases. Well worth the considerable expense.

I now walk over two hours at a time, and boy, are my feet sore! I still end up smiling.

By: Ian

Ian — Sat, 11 Oct 2003 07:22:46 +0000

So I have been playing around with the Grados and here is my opinion.

The build quality of them suck as do the look. For $125 dollars I would have thought they would be better. Also, the cord that comes with it is very very short. I cannot even site on my sofa and listen to my music using them, I need to sit next to the reciever which blows.

The sound in my opinion is fantastic. Especially compared to my Denon Digital headphones. They reproduce the sound in its most natural way, nothing is enhanced or altered. This can be both a good and bad thing. For a home reciever this is great because you can change the bass, treble and tone on the reciever itself and you know the sound you are hearing through the Grados are from the reciever; its pure.

But for portable use they are terrible and here is why: most portable devices have terrible tone controls, naturually because they lack the power and amplifier to power headphones like the Grado.

I hope that makes sense. From what I can tell, the Grados produce exactly what is put into them. Nothing is distorted or enhanced by them. When playing Moby, I thought the bass was perfect, not too strong or weak. And when playing Sting's Field of Gold album, the accoustics and vocals were very crips clear, and warm at the same time. When compared to the Grados, my Denons produced overwhelming bass and hiss. Now I don't want to go back to them.

But, dang, the Grados sure feel cheap and look ugly. Now I want to try some Sennheiser HD497 to see how they sound because they sure look great.

By: Cranford P. Snorkus

Cranford P. Snorkus — Tue, 09 Sep 2003 15:22:07 +0000

I find your review process suspect. None of the test source hardware you’ve used is capable of a uncoloured quality signal. Maybe this hardware is real-world but it limits the range of sound possible from the Grado’s (and the Sennheisers). Secondly, the SR125′s distort on the bottom-end when flailing at ‘techno’ because they are actually trying to produce the grossly exggagerated base line endemic to such ‘music’(read – series of tones), other headphones don’t distort during such an assualt because they don’t have a lot of bottom-end ability to start with. The SR125′s plastic contruction is cheesy but I feel less ostentatious wearing therefore more comfotable.

By: Athena

Athena — Thu, 21 Aug 2003 00:15:20 +0000

No offfense to Bixby, but the Grados are famous only because of their cult following. I am a hi-fi enthusiast and these just plain felt cheap to me. And for the money, go with the Sennheiser HD 580 headphones.

150 hours to break in headphones is not normal. The Sennheiser HD 580 have a warmer feel and will play back most audio sources without any problems.

By: Bixby

Bixby — Thu, 21 Aug 2003 00:08:37 +0000

I have sold and heard many headpones over the years and agree that the confort level of the Grados is not perfect. But then again they are built to last. The metal atennas is a design that goes back to the 50s and is much better than timy plastic hinges found on better looking stuff. As for the sound, the Grados are notorious for having to be borken in. That means the diagphrams don;t get to their best sounding state until at least 150 hours of use. I agree they sound a bit thin before that. As for the distortion, consider your source. These phones resolve all upstream crap. And last time I checked a computer sound card is hardly hi fidelity..

A better match might be there model 40s for this type use, much more forgiving of poor sources and still sounds good.