An upgrade from the Grado SR 60s
The SR 80s are headphones for the bedroom. The reason you might need a personal place
with these headphones is they are like mini speakers that go near your
ears. Yes, they clamp to your head, but
very lightly. So sound has no problem
getting in or out. They are an “open
air” design, allowing greater comfort but less isolation.
As far as physical design goes, these headphones are
beauties. The headband is flexible, and
holds the earpieces in adjustable position with a rod, allowing for 360-degree
rotation. The cable is a thick gauge
(almost as thick as a 1/4 inch jack), which suggests to me it’s well-shielded
and low impedance.
Grado refers to these headphones as having an open sound
stage and improved bass response. The SR
80s do have an “open” feel to them, and have great stereo separation with
well-defined parts to the left and right.
However, improved bass response is hard for me to accept having never
heard the SR 60s. I’m going to assume
the SR 60s had no bass at all, so the little low-end presence the SR 80s could
be an improvement.
In a sine wave signal sweep, the SR 80s carry all the
frequencies down to about 40 Hz, but the signal starts to roll off below
200. Anything below 40 is virtually
non-existent. Their crispy highs come
from a natural sensitivity between about 5 and 7 kHz. It’s annoying with a sine wave, but really
livens the musical mix.
So these headphones may perform better for some genres than
others. Best of Barry White? No.
Alvin and the Chipmunks Sing Christmas?
Yes. Jazz, classical, soft rock,
ambient and easy listening all sound great on the SR 80s. R&B, rock, pop, hiphop and world music
all tend to fall a little short on the bottom end for my personal liking. I’m not asking for junk in the trunk, but at
least have an ass.
The Verdict