Grado GS1000i Statement Series Headphones Review

1. Introduction2. Partnering Equipment3. Grado GS1000i Statement Series Headphones4. Testing the Grado GS1000i headphones5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

Many of our readers might not have heard of Grado, however in audiophile circles they are known as one of the best headphone manufacturers on the planet. They have been in the Audio industry for over 50 years now and are one of the leaders in design engineering for the high end audio and recording industries.

The company hold 48 patents and Joseph Grado is credited as the inventor of the stereo moving coil phono cartridge and he is responsible for more innovations in phono cartridge design than any other person. He was inducted into the Audio Hall of Fame in 1982.

Joseph Grado passed over the company control to his nephew John Grado who started work sweeping the floors of the company at 12 years old. He is now President and owner of Grado Laboratories. Carrying on the family tradition, John has been central to the development of the Prestige, Reference, Statement and Professional Series of Headphones.

All Grado headphones have a vented diaphragm design that incorporates a large air chamber. This design concept lowers the frequency resonance (distortion) of the diaphragm and extends bass response. The diaphragm is made of a low mass polymer, carefully formed to broaden resonant modes to reduce their amplitude.

Grado have five ranges of headphones. The In Ear Series, The Prestige Series, Reference Series, Statement Series and Professional Series. The mainstream Prestige Series headphones, such as the SR80i and SR125i offer great quality audio for very reasonable prices, once you get to the Reference Series you will certainly feel the bank balance start to dwindle.

We are looking today at the second highest model in their range, the GS1000i which received the ‘i' (improved) updated tag in recent years. They retail for around £950 in the UK, so they are certainly not an impulse buy. The best question is however, are they really worth the money?

Buying a set of audiophile grade headphones is only a part of the process. Simply plugging these into an everyday amplifier is not going to reap the best results, therefore you need to be looking to purchase a dedicated high quality headphone amplifier.

There is nothing worse that reading a review of a high end pair of headphones and not knowing the rest of the system. Some dedicated hi fi magazines frequently fail to even mention partnering equipment during reviews, so it can be difficult to weigh various pros and cons.

I have several headphone amplifiers at home, but I found that the Grado GS1000i works great with the Graham Slee Solo SRG II unit.

The Graham Slee Solo SRGII is one of the finest headphone amplifiers on the market.

It really only comes to life when you buy the upgraded power supply, which is dubbed the ‘PSU1'. This Power Supply isn't cheap however and costs around £170, although many dealers sell this as a ‘matched' pair for around £510 inc vat. The Solo can drive almost any headphone and bring out hidden dynamic detail and ambient imaging that very few loudspeaker systems can match. The Solo has no treble or bass controls, it is a pure, straight through amplifier that will deliver the truest sound. If £510 is too much then The Solo SRG Intro, without the PSU1, retails for around £400.

There are two inputs on the back of the Solo amplifier which allow connection of two sources without having to reconnect frequently. The Solo can even drive two pairs of headphones with the use of a ‘Y-Cable'.

• Headphone impedance: 20 to 600 Ohms
• Maximum output: +14dB*
• Distortion THD: 0.15% (onset of clipping)* 0.01% (+10dB out)*
• Frequency response (half power): 12Hz (-0.5dB) to 100kHz (-3dB)
• Frequency response (max power): 12Hz (-0.5dB) t0 150kHz (-1.5dB)
• Signal to noise ratio: 89dB
• Input sensitivity: 125mV rms
• Short circuit duration: Continuous
• Power output into 600 Ohms: 25mW rms (+14dB SPL)
• Power output into 32 Ohms: 30mW rms (+15dB SPL)
• Phono connectors: Heavy Gold Plated/teflon insulated
• Mains Voltage UK: 200-250V ac 50/60Hz
• Size (approx.): 116 (W) 175 (D) x 49 (H) inc feet

The Roksan Kandy K2 CD Player will be used for this review, it is, in my opinion one of the finest CD players under £1000 and as it is a British make, it earns bonus points. When it was released it cost around £900, but has recently seen some reductions to around £750. Many argue that the Cyrus CD 6 SE is a better player, however I personally find it a little fatiguing when used with Grado due to the slight ‘over brightness'.

The Kandy K2 might not appeal to everyone due to the quirky looks, but internally it is pretty much as good as it gets in this price range. Roksan have changed the CD mechanism, they improved the power supply stages and noise isolation and revamped the master clock circuitry for even more stability. In real world terms it means this player is capable of resolving a massive amount of detail, especially with complex classical arrangements. It is refined, sweet, emotive and enjoyable over long listening durations.

I am using a pair of AudioQuest Sidewinder interconnects between the CD player and Headphone amplifier.

The Grado headphones are supplied in a rather shoddy looking box, surprising given the price. It is plain white cardboard with foam inserts. I can appreciate that the box is not relevant to the sound, but Grado need to consider something slightly more professional looking, after all you have just spent £1,000 on a new set of headphones.

With the headphones removed, Grado have also bundled an extension cable and a 6.35mm to 3.5mm converter cable.

The Grado GS1000i headphones might not appeal to everyone, but I think they look stunning. They use handcrafted Mahogany earpieces which are created using an intricate curing process. Grado say that they help to optimise the ‘tonal quality'. The GS1000i is the new version of the phones with upgraded dynamic transducers and a new 8 conductor cable design. With the new wood, cable and driver improvements Grado claim that the result is improved control and stability of the upper and lower range of the frequency spectrum.

The cable is extremely thick and is held in place with a substantial support. It ends in a 6.35mm gold plated plug. This cable is extremely high quality, as we would expect.

The GS1000i is a dynamic transducer design and works on an open air principle with a frequency response of 8hz to 35khz. The impedance is 32 ohms with a matched driver db rating of 0.05.

The Grado GS1000i cushion design is rather dramatic. The idea is to create a ‘room' for the ears to sit inside, which in effect creates a larger soundstage and greater spatial awareness. Grado spent many years working on fine tuning the balance between the driver and the wooden driver housing to create the desired end result. Finding the sweet spot was painstaking, but they claim to have found it.

The first thing to notice about the Grado GS1000i is the extreme levels of comfort offered by the design. The headphones don't actually make contact with the ear, as they are pushed away from the skull and skin by the foam pads. It is also important to say that these headphones ‘leak' a great deal of the sound, everyone in the room will be able to tell what you are listening to.

Grado say that the response is as flat as possible, and I would confirm that this is the case. Initially I was pleasantly surprised to hear improvements over the older Grado GS1000's, a long term headphone which have seen thousands of hours use in my house. Initially the GS1000i's sounded harsh, but this is a common trait of Grado phones, and they take several hundred hours of listening time to fully bed in. I was even hearing changes with my older GS1000's after 6 months use.

For those of you who like a headphone with a lot of volume capability, these will not disappoint. I was turning the volume down in pain, long before I reached the limits of the drivers.

After a few months of burning the headphones in, I decided to make some early assessments of the sound quality. This was after around 350 hours of playback time.

Playing the Austrian Harmonia Mundi recording of Schubert Nacht und Traume with Matthias Goerne and Alexander Schmalcz highlighted the astounding dynamic range of these headphones. Matthias Goerne's voice was highlighted with bombastic depth and with such clarity that I was almost checking to see if he had walked into the room.

Linn Records Frederic Chopin Sonatas Opp.35 and 58, Barcarolle in F Sharp major, and Sonata No. 3 in B minor were delivered in such an intense manner that it was hard to believe that I was actually listening to headphones. This recording is a testament to Linn Records mastering technique, because I could even pick out pianist Artur Pizarro's breathing in the quieter passages. The headphones injected very little colour, if any, yet were able to let the passages breathe in such a musical manner that the emotions of the various passages were easily conveyed. It was actually impossible to stop listening to this disc, so over an hour later I moved onto the next of my ‘test' discs.

Moving from the classical genre to modern jazz, we gave All or Nothing At All a play from the Diana Krall Love Scenes album released in 1997. The opening salvo of plucked double bass notes from Christian McBride initially caught me by surprise as the depth and focusing was better than any other rendition of this track to date. Even surpassing my experiences with the Sennheiser HD800 headphones and RS1's. Diana Krall's sultry, breathless voice was perfectly reproduced and by closing my eyes I was transported to a cigar smoke filled, softly lit jazz club in America.

The Grado Gs1000i does reveal problems with a recording and then multiples them ten fold. Many older recordings would exhibit flat dynamics and hissy background noise, but it will vary from recording to recording. With this specific configuration however, we have no treble or tone controls to help ‘mask' any weaknesses, hearing exactly how a track was recorded. There is no compensation, no false enhancements, just pure imaging and feedback from this equipment, warts and all.

Listening to well recorded folk and acoustic pop music would be exhilarating however, with musicans perfectly placed within the sound stage. Vocals are rich, and full bodied with a silky smooth top end and no indication of sibilance. Once I experienced such pin point precision with soundstaging it really was hard to go back to anything else. A group of singers, such as the Medieval Babes, or All Angels were so accurately positioned that I felt I was standing within touching distance in all directions.

Neil Young's Harvest Moon is an excellent recording and the Grado GS1000i's reproduced this perfectly, even surpassing the quality delivered by my Dali Grand Coupe speakers connected to a Krell Amplifier. His distinctive voice was rendered with subtle dialect and a hint of frailty which makes Neil Young such an appealing artist. His aggressive guitar from early years was communicated with passion and accuracy.

Throughout all our testing, the astounding levels of transparency and dynamic resolution with endless levels of detail really do need to be heard to be believed. Music is delivered with perfect fluidity and a lack of colouration.

Led Zeppelin's back catalogue was accurately reproduced, and while there was a certain amount of background hiss from the analogue recordings, the classic dynamic of Page and Plant's interplay transported me back to when I was a kid. We can debate the technical pros and cons of various designs, but if a set of headphones can bring out an unfettered feeling of nostalgia then it doesn't really matter.

As a matter of curiousity, I removed the headphones from the Graham Slee Headphone amplifier and plugged them directly into an older amplifier and CD player I have in the house. Most of the dynamic range and soundstaging was lost in a single blow. If you are interested in these headphones, be aware that buying them to use with a cheap hi-fi system is not going to miraculously cure your listening experience. They simply need high quality partnering equipment to approach their best output quality.

The Grado GS1000i's are an incredible piece of engineering. They look retro and old fashioned, you almost feel like a World War Two radio operator wearing them, but under the dramatic ‘love it or hate it' exterior lies a product with such transparency and detail that you can't help but fall in love with them. They do need a long time to bed in, and they are still improving as I write this.

The GS1000i's aren't ugly, but there is no doubting they will divide opinion. The mahogany earpiece appeals to me, but other people thought that they looked as if they were designed in a previous era.

Technically there is little to fault, and while music is subjective to each person, I felt that the GS1000i's are pretty much as good as it gets. They are easily the best headphones I have heard, significantly better than the excellent RS1's and Sennheiser HD800's. Not an an easy task.

The detail they can extract from well recorded music feels authentic and yet at times unreal. I was listening to recordings I thought I knew inside out, only to be hearing subtle ambient tones I didn't even know where there in the first place.

While it all sounds like a technical showcase, this is only part of the picture. Music may be detailed, but nothing is forced or harsh and with the right recordings the soundstaging is simply breathtaking.

Of course when the price is weighed in, people will argue that no headphone is worth £1000, and that is certainly an opinion I won't argue with. What I can say however is that the system I used today costs just over £2,000 and it was outperforming my audiophile speaker based system which cost six times as much. In this regard I actually think it is a bargain.

Pros:

• Incredible dynamics
• Soundstaging is immense
• little colouration
• custom crafted mahogany wood finish is lovely
• quite easy to drive
• exceptionally well balanced

Cons:

• expensive
• looks might not appeal to everyone
• need serious partnering equipment
• packaging is rubbish
• need a long time to bed in for optimum quality.

KitGuru says: The fact that Grado make an even more expensive set of Headphones – the PS1000 (£1,700) means there is possibly room for even higher levels of output quality. Right now I find that hard to believe.

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