On Wed, 2004-07-21 at 11:15, Ryan Underwood wrote: > Anyone have opinions on the Grado SR60? I am really happy with them for > the price. Probably not "pro" quality, but above and beyond anything I > ever bought at a retail store. A bonus is that they don't require > separate headphone amplifier, which is nice for portable use... Excellent phones in the $50-$100 range. No, they don't compare with the $300+ superstars, but then you get what you pay for and, in the case of SR60, a bit more than what you pay. I've heard about people who use them with portables on the street! :-) The retro World War II look makes them less of a target for muggers and thieves (they believe you're wearing cheap ass turn-of-the-other-century phone-company-standard-issue cans). Some say they're ugly, but i actually kinda like the style, in the way Harley-Davidson fans like to wear Nazi helmets. I don't recall whether they have as sturdy a cable as the SR125 with which i'm more familiar, but if they do, then that's another plus for wearing them in difficult places (outdoors, or in an unruly studio): that solid piece of copper rope will rather yank the amplifier out of the rack (or rip your head apart from your shoulders) if you trip on it rather than giving up and breaking apart. That, sadly, is not the case with high-end cans such as Sennheiser HD580/600. On the flip side, the HD's thin cable does not abuse a slim device such as an iPod (especially a mini iPod which is known to have issues with the output connector), while the Grado will do that with a vengeance. The brightness (too much treble response) which is a common issue with any Grado is less of a problem with SR60, if my memory serves me (i think the SR60 have a kind of sharp, crackling, hard and lifeless treble response but not much overemphasized), but on the flip side the SR60 are rough and lack the ample space of the higher models. Again, i'm making comparisons agains highest-end phones, because the SR60 are pretty damn good when compared to other sub-$100 cans. In any case, for the price range, you'll be hard pressed to find better phones. But if i were to buy phones in that price range, i'd rather eat plain bread and drink plain water for a while and save money for the SR80 (or go full vegan for a while longer and reach the $200 threshold where a lot of oportunities open up; not to mention the health benefits of the diet). But then again, i'm a transparency/accuracy nutcase, so... -- Florin Andrei http://florin.myip.org/
