New Cans from Grado

[bsodmike]

Hi all,

For the longest time, I've relied on my Denon / Rotel / B&W powered home-theatre (which is now 9-years old!). However, I decided to take the plunge with a pair of Headphones and after some research settled on the Grado RS1e with 12 - 30kHz.



For the time being, these are driven by the AVR itself, which isn't much of an issue given the headphones' input impedance is the industry-standard 32-ohms ; incidentally, this also means that with the 3.5mm phono jack, my iPhone does a great job of running them as well.

They still need to be broken in but so far, I'm definitely impressed. The mids/highs are just fabulous, and since I'm not a bass junkie, I'm quite pleased When I want to crank the bass, I just switch to my B&W 603S3s and sub.

Any recommendations on albums/tracks you specifically enjoy more with headphones? I listen to a fair bit of Andrea Bocelli, Richard Clayderman, Delirium, and Altern-rock (unplugged) etc.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Lovely - I have a pair of slightly modified SR125 headphones running off a headphone amp. Grados are more forwards sounding and bright headphones - they tend to excel at vocals and rock.

[bsodmike]

I'm considering adding this amp by Schiit, with the DAC module
http://schiit.com/products/jotunheim

Was also considering this, which has a Tube + solid-state stage, however, I don't want the tube to colour the audio (plus the heat/power wastage)
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...phone_Amp.html

So for the time being I'll go solid-state, although audio straight from the AVR is fine, I'd wager a proper headphone amp would be 'better', and at least more convenient.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Also don't forget the ODAC and amp too,and companies like Beresford. I have used both a Musical Fidelity X-Cans and one of the better known Chinese ones. Different tubes will change the characteristics of the output,so can be fun to play around with.