Grado SR325is

I bought these after a local dealer kindly lent me his Grado's.

If I hadn't heard the dealers 'phones, my Grado's would have been sent straight back. Out of the box they sounded awful.

I left them connected to a radio for a week and was stunned by the difference that made.

I love the SR325i's!

Connected to a Cowon J3 or Linn Majik DSI, both playing FLAC files, the headphones sound amazing. Everything is so balanced. No music flusters them. Every track so far sounds great and better than anything I've heard before.

They don't immediately grab the attention, but switch to another speaker (loudspeaker or headphone), and they sound wrong in comparison to the Grado's.

Brilliant!

I bought a set of these plus a Grado extension cord (for about 200 pounds, incidentally, from a UK Grado dealer on E-Bay) about 6 weeks ago.  I have a Cyrus CD8SE/PSX-R & Cyrus 8VS2/PSX-R and the sound is sensational - clear crisp treble, detailed mid-range, great timing and a deep, contolled bass.  They also have surprisingly good imagery most of the time, only occasionally sounding a little "sideways on" to my ears with certain, mostly large-orchestral, recordings.  I've found myself going through favourite discs just to hear how the 'phones sound with familiar music, which is always a sign of a good new piece of kit!  Be warned that they take a good many hours to run in so, if you are auditioning a new pair or when you first hear them out of the box, you need to allow them to open up with use before passing final judgement.  Especially for the money I paid, I think these are sensational buying.

I put my first hi-fi system together over 30 years ago, and have step-by-step continuously improved my system, I must have spent many thousands of pounds, but let me tell you no other hi-fi component has given me such a quantum increase in sound quality as these Grado headphones...if they sound bad it's because all the failings in your kit have been exposed for the first time...