Grado’s latest wired, open-back headphones are both a nod to the company’s past as well as a signal of what to expect in the future. The Signature HP100 SE are an homage to founder, Joe Grado, in the lead-up to what would have been his 100th birthday (Joe died in 2015), and they take their sound and design inspiration from Joe’s HP1 — the first headphones Grado ever made.
Like the HP1, which was followed by the HP2 and HP3, the Signature HP100 SE’s housings are individually machined from specially treated aluminum with the product name neatly engraved on the face. Joe Grado originally selected aluminum for the HP1 for its anti-resonance qualities.
Within those housings, however, is a completely new speaker design with 52mm drivers made with paper composite cones and powered by a high flux magnetic circuit using rare earth alloys, and a new voice coil made from lightweight copper-plated aluminum.
The company says its goal was to deliver a speaker that “produced excellent high frequency resolution, midrange smoothness and bass energy with low distortion, resulting in a voicing that is musically and harmonically correct.”
The HP100 SE are the first Grado headphones to offer detachable cables. Each earcup uses a 4-pin mini XLR plug. The HP100 SE ships with a braided, 12-conductor cable with a 6.3mm source connection, but Grado says that additional detachable cable options, such as 4-pin XLR termination, 4.4mm balanced termination, and various cable lengths available in the future.
The headband and height rods look almost unchanged from the HP1, but the company says they’ve been thoroughly updated. The new headband features 50% more padding than previous Grado designs, while the stainless steel height rods are designed to not slide out of the junction block if the zinc alloy end caps become dislodged.
Grado says you can expect the HP100 SE to deliver a frequency response of 3.5Hz-51.5kHz, with a total harmonic distortion of less than 0.1% at 100dB, a 1 milliwatt sound pressure level of 117dB, and 38 ohms of impedance. In other words, they should be just as easy to drive as the rest of Grado’s lineup of headphones.
Speaking of the lineup, I asked Grado if the “Signature” designation of the HP100 SE marked a return of the Signature series, but a company spokesperson said this decision was “undetermined” at the moment.
The Grado Signature HP100 SE are hand-assembled in Brooklyn, just like the HP1, and cost $2,495. They’ll be available in November, from gradolabs.com .
