Grado Prestige SR 225 - Headphones ( ear-cup )

 GREAT SET OF HEADPHONES
I never really felt I needed or wanted headphones, but after a complaint from a neighbor that my music was too loud, I figured that it might not be a bad idea to have them if I wanted to listen to music or watch a DVD at later-evening hours. Well, now that I have them, I am never without them. The sound is clear, vivid, and immediate. Of major importance to me is the comfort. Many headphones used to give me a headache and cause pain around the outside of my ears. These do not. They are an integral part of my sound system, and I recommend them without reservation.

 Happily in debt, for once.
I'm a grad student with no money and inexplicably picky tastes in audio equipment. Having acquired a high-end digital stage piano, I've spent the last few months piecing together a suitable setup for home use; in my case, 'suitable' means near-reference grade, but at a cost not exceeding what I can pilfer from Sallie Mae's purse.

Despite the fact that I play and listen mostly at night, I viewed headphones in proportion to their size: reluctantly, I splurged on a $30 pair of Sony oil-barrels.

But after a few weeks of headaches and ringing ears, I headed down to a boutiquey little sound emporium in Boston, having committed myself to spending $100, once and for all, on some SR80s.

Given the opportunity, though, I sat down in a studio and worked my way through the entire three-figure-price spectrum of headphones.

Grado yielded the most promising batch of candidates, but I was surprised at the variance among them: the product specs you read online for Grado really fails to emphasize this. The SR80s were everything I had expected, but then, the SR125s were identifiably more adept at rendering distinct voices within a choir.

Then, foolishly, I clamped on a pair of 225s: bass pours into your head with effortless clarity, background instruments that I never even heard on my old ear-traps were not only present, but warmly textured, etc. When I got them home, $175 later, I decided to baptize them by fire with a mix of Beck and Ben Folds Live, which I find stubbornly muggy at high bass and volume.

The 225s have revealed a completely unknown layer of instrumentation in some of my favorite Beck tracks -- I don't just mean there's a new cello back there: I mean there's a flute, a panpipe, a tapdancer, and a fat booger hanging out of the cellist's nose. As for the live recordings of Ben Folds, not only did the bottom-end piano hold up amidst the hum of the crowd, but you can actually hear people talking to each other in the audience in a couple of tracks that were recorded, it's now evident, in a small theater.

And as for my own piano, I can say that playing through headphones is no longer less desirable than through a set of very commendable Infinity speakers -- especially when I have the phones plugged into my amp instead of the piano itself.

I don't care how broke you are: if you listen attentively to your music -- and you have a quality home amp or receiver to drive these headphones to their potential -- you will not look back,

You might, however, benefit from calling around town... the internet isn't always the best deal for these sorts of products.

 Killer 'Phones!
Noteworthy for their eye-blinking impact and up-front presentation. If Sennheiser 'phones sound like the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, these sound like CBGB's. Considered by many to be the best rock headphones in the world. I like them quite well for jazz and classical (especially solo performances), but for rock they really do get your head banging!

Weakness include a narrow "in your head" soundstage, not the best build quality (plastic), some people find them uncomfortable (I don't. They're quite lightweight, but they touch your ears when you wear them, and some people just don't like that I guess), but the kicker is for them to sound their best you really have to change the pads.

"Change the pads..." you ask? For the most bass, do a Google for 'Todd the Vinyl Junkie' and pick up a pair of Grado flat pads. For the best balance (and to save a little money) go to Sennheiser's site and grab a pair of replacement pads for the HD-414s. They're yellow, and you have to cut a hole in them (about an inch and a quarter) but it's well worth it.

Probably not truly a 5-star 'phone in the grand scheme of things (like the Sennheiser Orpheus or Stax Omega II), but their strong suits are unmatched by any other manufacturer's headphones at any price.