Grado PS1000: Review'd

[postjack]

Picked these up at a good price last month over on HF. Kind of a random purchase, but Grado cans hold a unique mystique for me, quite unlike any other company in the market. I have no idea why. Maybe its because of that first experience I had with the RS-1/PPX3/Modwright 999ES/MFSL Ryan Adams "Heart Breaker" SACD combo: it was the first time I felt like I was really listening to what I then understood to be "hi-fi" sound. The midrange was just so beautiful and right, right there perfect and lovely with the guitar sound and Ryan's vocals. Its such a vivid memory along my hi-fi journey, the kind of mind ripping audio experience that tends to come fewer and further between the more we become accustomed to the sonic revelations so many components can offer.

I've owned a lot of Grados, if I can try to type from memory right quick: SR60, SR225, SR325i, HF-1, RS-1 (one buttoned, one unbuttoned, one buttoned recabled), HF-2, GS1000 (one recabled, one not), HP-1000, and the HF-2. The only one to survive the inevitable headphone purging is the HF-2. What this humble little not-so-limited edition lacks in ultimate resolution it makes up for in great bass texture, that classic Grado midrange, and highs that are a bit rolled off but as a result not overly aggressive: all these add up to listenability.

When I first received the PS1000, I was disappointed to find a loud distortion in the right driver during certain bass notes. I immediately contacted the seller to return them, or arrange for repair under his warranty, but he suggested before we go that route I try the driver sucking technique. I honestly have never heard of this with any Grado before, but he said it tends to alleviate a lot of issues caused by dust, hair, or some other sort of problem with the mylar film that makes up the driver. Skeptically I performed mouth to mouth with the right driver, removing the bagel pad, drying my lips, pressing them against the ear side of the driver, and sucking slightly until I heard a pop sound. I put the headphone back on, and wouldn't you believe it, boom, no more distortion. I tried hard at various volume levels to get the distortion to come back, but after several weeks of listening, nothing. Really weird, but I'm glad it worked.

As to the sound, it would serve us best to compare the sound to other Grados, the GS1000 in particular. We all know the greatest sin of the GS1000 is the complete lack of the number one reason anyone buys a Grado: midrange. Couple this with some extremely aggressive and bright highs, and its positives of comfort and soundstage are easily overwhelmed. I still find the GS1000 to be a neat phone, and enjoyed it on certain recordings with severely rolled off highs (see: audience recordings, Dead, Phish, Panic, etc.), but for the most part it is a flawed transducer, more severely than the flaws/tradeoffs of other headphones (darkness and slowness of HD650, small soundstage of traditional Grados, etc).

So the good news about the PS1000 is it does indeed bring the Grado midrange back, at least in a sense. It can tend to be quite beautiful, but I still find it to be a bit

[HiWire]

Great review. I only listened to the PS1000 briefly at a meet, but it does sound much different than the RS1, HP2, and PS1. The pair I auditioned was fairly new and coming out of an Esoteric SACD player - I'm not sure if they change much over time.

[The Monkey]

Why can't more reviews be like this? Nicely done, Posty.

[Torpedo]

Because most reviewers don't listen to their ears and aren't profit free?

Informative and clear. Thanks!

[Voltron]

Nice posting PostyWillow! I want to check those gigantic cans out again one of these days. They sounded pretty good with Todd's 307A and Pinnacle but I haven't heard them with much else.

[deepak]

Hello I would like to demo this headphone with my Blue Hawaii

[recstar24]

Nice review man. Should post it on HF so the reviewers can see how it should be done. Very clear and concise, I really got a nice idea of how it sounds sans not actually listening to the thing. Would love to check it out sometime, though I bet my ears are so used to the hp1000's it probably won't be my cup of tea.

[bozebuttons]

Nice posting PostyWillow! I want to check those gigantic cans out again one of these days. They sounded pretty good with Todd's 307A and Pinnacle but I haven't heard them with much else.

At canjam I thought they sounded better out of the Manley 300b preamp.

[postjack]

Because most reviewers don't listen to their ears and aren't profit free?

Informative and clear. Thanks!

I may not have a profit motive, but I did do 100% of my listening tests with jazz recordings of my jazz band that I myself recorded.

Also I meant to include an anecdote about me, Roy Gandy, Tim de Paravinci, and the kimber kable guy hang gliding at RMAF 09, or some shit like that, and this awesome conversation we had about audio that is pertinent to the PS1000, but I forgot. also I didn't use the word "grain-free" as much as I intended to.

[Voltron]

Lolz

[cetoole]

Nice review, but I think everyone is waiting to hear how they work for watching movies in one's own home.

[Wmcmanus]

Nicely done. I agree with what others have said about this being how a review should be written.

Clearly, you have a lot of headphone listening experience. As such, the perspectives you've offered on the PS-1000 would, I'd imagine, help those who haven't listened to them to gain a pretty solid "understanding" of what to expect (insert cautions about the need to do one's own listening along with system synergy, yada yada).

That being said, I'm not yet convinced of the up tipping and coloration you speak of with great confidence. No doubt, you've heard this and can define it precisely, and thus the PS-1000 is ultimately a flawed headphone (sort of like all headphones are, I suppose, but more so than one would expect at this price point). I can only imagine that I too will soon hear the colorations and thus come to the same conclusions as you have.

I'm just not as intimately familiar with the PS-1000 as you are (no mouth to mouth sessions yet). I've spent maybe 7-10 hours, tops, scattered over several months, and never while in a "critical listening" mode; nor have I attempted to make any direct comparisons to other phones. Been meaning to spend more time with them, but have been enamored by the LCD-2 of late and have also been sampling other new (to me) cans like the T1, DX1000, and W1000X.

I guess the place to start would be relative to the GS-1000 (like you've done) which has been gathering dust of late, then maybe to the HD800 and T1.

I do agree, based on my limited listening so far, that:

1) they're a lot of fun to listen to just in general terms,

2) they do offer at least a quasi speaker-like bass response, although in a clearly headphone-like manner if that makes any sense (i.e., you certainly can't forget that you're listening to headphones),

3) they have a high degree of overall listenability/enjoyability, and

4) they rock.

Despite their ridiculous and unjustified price (I agree, not ‘worth it’ in a relative value sense when considering the LCD-2 and the like), for some odd reason I now feel less ripped off than I did before I owned them! My pair also came at a good price (at least better than I expected) and so far they seem like keepers (not that many aren’t for me, so maybe that’s not saying much).

[jvlgato]

Nice review, thanks willow!

[bozebuttons]

there was a Manley 300B and i missed it? i've always wanted to hear one. well, that's what i get for drinking instead of listening to stuff.

i regret nothing! other than that.

It was in Todds room at the other end of the room from the pinnacle.

[HeadphoneAddict]

I listened to the PS-1000 at the Moon Audio table at RMAF 2010, and out of the Cary "300 SEI something" amp they sounded really good. I could live with a pair, even though they are colored in a fun way. I compared them to the LCD-2 and on the same Cary amp the PS-1000 sounded better, while the LCD-2 seemed a little duller and less dynamic from that amp. It turned out the PS-1000 and Cary amp is Drew's personal rig from home.

[postjack]

Nicely done. I agree with what others have said about this being how a review should be written.

Clearly, you have a lot of headphone listening experience. As such, the perspectives you've offered on the PS-1000 would, I'd imagine, help those who haven't listened to them to gain a pretty solid "understanding" of what to expect (insert cautions about the need to do one's own listening along with system synergy, yada yada).

That being said, I'm not yet convinced of the up tipping and coloration you speak of with great confidence. No doubt, you've heard this and can define it precisely, and thus the PS-1000 is ultimately a flawed headphone (sort of like all headphones are, I suppose, but more so than one would expect at this price point). I can only imagine that I too will soon hear the colorations and thus come to the same conclusions as you have.

I'm just not as intimately familiar with the PS-1000 as you are (no mouth to mouth sessions yet). I've spent maybe 7-10 hours, tops, scattered over several months, and never while in a "critical listening" mode; nor have I attempted to make any direct comparisons to other phones. Been meaning to spend more time with them, but have been enamored by the LCD-2 of late and have also been sampling other new (to me) cans like the T1, DX1000, and W1000X.

I guess the place to start would be relative to the GS-1000 (like you've done) which has been gathering dust of late, then maybe to the HD800 and T1.

I do agree, based on my limited listening so far, that:

1) they're a lot of fun to listen to just in general terms,

2) they do offer at least a quasi speaker-like bass response, although in a clearly headphone-like manner if that makes any sense (i.e., you certainly can't forget that you're listening to headphones),

3) they have a high degree of overall listenability/enjoyability, and

4) they rock.

Despite their ridiculous and unjustified price (I agree, not ‘worth it’ in a relative value sense when considering the LCD-2 and the like), for some odd reason I now feel less ripped off than I did before I owned them! My pair also came at a good price (at least better than I expected) and so far they seem like keepers (not that many aren’t for me, so maybe that’s not saying much).

glad everyone enjoyed the review.

I appreciate your comments Wayne. I have to say my perception of the colorations I hear can vary wildly from recording to recording. Some albums sound pretty darn natural, while some exhibit significantly more of that frequency up tipping I'm talking about. While I can't speak to the PS1000s nature on all recordings, I know that on newer more brightly mixed/mastered material, the PS1000s inherent favoring of higher frequencies can make for a less then pleasant listening experience. But on well mastered jazz or rock, the bright character of the cans adds a sweetness to the tone that can go totally unnoticed by my brain because I'm just enjoying the music.

of course YMMV, to each his own, etc. though we often deride the screaming noisome masses and their claims of "but it sounds good to my ears!", ultimately this IS a subjective hobby. though I do believe there are headphones that are objectively bad, due to their severe unnaturalness of tone, in the end there is quite a large group of very good headphones we can pick from, and from there it really does come down to personal taste, budget, comfort, and yes, some sort of undefinable emotional/mental/spiritual connection one has with a specific headphone or company or gear "type" (dynamic, electrostatic, ortho, tube, ss, DIY, etc).

so I guess the question I'm trying to answer in this review is does the PS1000 fall in this category of "very good" headphones. The GS1000 does not: I believe the PS1000 does, and as such should at least be auditioned by anyone with an interest in headphones.

[bhjazz]

Why can't more reviews be like this? Nicely done, Posty.

Agreed. Well done.

...and mostly because a remaster of Hell Bent for Leather was used during the review.

[Currawong]

The Monkey's comments thirded, I enjoyed reading this and wish more people could write this way, including myself.

[yazz flute]

Apologies for the thread bump but do the MAD Ear+HD and Woo WA6 amps pair nicely with the PS1000?

[purrin]

Apologies for the thread bump but do the MAD Ear+HD and Woo WA6 amps pair nicely with the PS1000?

WA6SE does. But source is important too. PS1000s have some bad qualities that are difficult to tame. But once you get things to work, they are a lot of fun. Did you buy a new pair yet? I down to ~$900 asking price for mine - I'm betting it will go soon.

[grawk]

try having this conversation at headfi please

[purrin]

try having this conversation at headfi please

Ouch. I was waiting for that.

[yazz flute]

I'll press on regardless. The PS1000 is hopefully winging its way here as I type. The WA6SE is quite a step up in performance and price from the two models that I'm considering. The form factor isn't ideal either. I was hoping that the MAD Ear+HD or WA6 would be more than sufficient to drive the PS1000 and am just wondering how they compare.

[Dusty Chalk]

Well, you'll have to listen for yourself and tell us.

[postjack]

I like to strip my ps1000 cable and solder it to a 9volt battery and then drink milk until I throw up.