General Asylum: REVIEW: Grado RS1 Headphones by Rameish

Equipment: Grado RS-1 with Grado RA-1 headphone amplifier hooked to Copland 289 CD Player with Kimber Select KS1030 interconnects (also used with Panasonic SL-CT470 and Sony 475 personal cd players with straightwire mini-to-RCA interconnects bought from headroom).

The Grado RS-1 and RA-1 amp came alive after about 40 hours. The music that is makes is so wonderful that it is a real alternative to listening to my main system. At nights, just before bedtime, I hook the amp and headphones to the Panasonic personal and I start to drift - not to sleep but into a music trance-like state. At other times - when it is hooked up to the Copland CD Player - I'm enjoying the music so much that I loose track of time.

Is it the headphone? The battery-powered Grado amp? the CD Player? The Interconnects? Well, I started substituting to find out. Without going into detials here's the gist.

Guess what, the headphone and headphone amp made the biggest difference. Sure the Copland sounded better than the Panasonic - and by a big margin. But, the panasonic didn't destroy the music and was better than the Sony 475. Sure I heard what sounds like the occasional skip, occasional loss of rez and so on but the panasonic is a sub $100 personal!

I've tried with RA-1 with a pair of Sennheisers 530 Mk II and they are able to drive the Senns well. Of course the Sennheisers are not in the same league as the Grado RS-1s but they are quite good.

I then borrowed my nephew's Grado SR60s and was quite happy with the sound. Not as good as the RS-1 but hey they only cost $69.

Next step is to borrow some other heasphone amps and see how they work with the Grado RS-1. I've already tried the Headroom Airhead amp but it's not as good as the Grado RA-1, unfortunately.

Guess there's truth to the old phrase - you get what you pay for.

Hope you guys find this helpful and if you have any specific questions, please post or email me. I'll help if I can.

REVIEW: Grado RS1 Headphones Review by rameish at Audio Asylum