productbeschrijving
"The GR8 became a reality because of an urging by my sons Jonathan and Matthew. They realized the need to offer our customers a Grado in-ear headphone. Jonathan and Matthew were instrumental in the process of voicing this great ear phone.
Family is a true source of inspiration."
John Grado
An excerpt from
By Tom Lyle
Remarkable
Almost even before they were fully broken in, it was remarkable how much I was sonically reminded of Grado's lower priced SR series of headphones such as the '60i and '80i (I currently use the SR-80 on an almost every day basis for monitoring). This was not because with the GR8s one gets more than a taste of “high-end” sound from lowly in-ear 'phones, which is indeed true, but the voicing of the GR8 sounds exceptionally close to Grado's ”normal” line of headphones. Even though this is a highly subjective observation, it was obvious that the GR8 was better than the similarly priced, popular Shure model. A few years ago, I heard praise upon praise heaped upon this Shure in-ear headphone, which I subsequently purchased. This model eventually failed, and was replaced by their current equivalently priced model. Not only does the bass of the Grado go deeper and the treble sound more lifelike, but real instruments and voices sound much more like real instruments and real voices. Plus, I could not get a good seal with the Shure's provided standard synthetic ear tips – the only way I could get the kind of seal from the outside environment was with Shure's disposable yellow foam sleeves. These “ear plug” type sleeves did indeed form a near perfect seal, but were not only dirt and crud magnets, and wore out within a few weeks necessitating replacement. I would purchase packs of ten pairs at a time, which became not only inconvenient, but an tiresome ongoing expense.
Let us get this out of the way first: I'm not for one minute going to even entertain the notion that the sound of a pair of in-ear headphones can sonically compete with their conventional over-the-ear brethren. As far as I'm concerned, it is physically impossible. OK, I've heard some amazing cost-no-object in-ears with custom molded ear-pieces sound incredible, but it is quite amazing that for the price of an inexpensive interconnect the GR8 had me at times turning my head quickly to one side because I was startled by what I thought was a sound coming from “outside” the headphones. This suspension of disbelief didn't happen that often, but often enough on orchestral and chamber tracks played via uncompressed files. And of course that's the beauty of an iPod, tracks that deserve it can be loaded in full bandwidth (well, at least in “CD quality” or better .wav files or uncompressed Apple Lossless, or AIFF), and that's how I did my critical listening. But to be honest, most of my listening other than to evaluate the GR8 through the iPod was hardly “critical”, it was listening to guilty pleasures whilst on the go, and a good part of that was with compressed files, and in a rather noisy environment.
Still, I was able to find the time to connect the GR8 'phones to my Headroom outboard headphone amplifier being driven by the front end of the big rig, and that's when I was often taken aback by their sound quality, such as when playing a FLAC file of a movement of Sibelius' Seventh Symphony conducted by Paavo Berglund and his Chamber Orchestra of Europe on Finlandia. Not only was the all-important midrange very natural sounding (the strings of this ensemble are certainly first-rate), but I could sense the hall sound, too, as well as extraneous noise from the orchestra and conductor. As the symphony starts with its Adagio, where the winds introduce us to the main recurring theme, and as the intensity of the piece builds to its stormy (snowy?) climax, the GR8 never lost its cool (sorry). Instruments and their sections kept a respectable distance from each other in the soundstage between my ears (which I like to refer to as the headstage), and made me think that Grado knew what they were doing when they decided to design the GR8 around a single driver. The bass didn't go super-deep or have a lot of power, but was well balanced, and had enough heft to let me “feel” not only what was happening on the right side of the orchestra, but also let me hear individual instruments that had lots of bass energy.
Yet it was the treble where it set itself apart from similarly priced headphones, as each high pitched sound differentiated itself from the others. I've run into the “one-note treble” of many an inexpensive pair of 'phones in my career, and thankfully the GR8 steered well clear of this sound. Through the GR8 different cymbals could be differentiated from each other, and thankfully sounded like metal cymbals, not as if they were discharging spray-paint cans. Listening to the GR8s on pieces of music featuring vocals revealed, again, a very lifelike sound. I guess some might think that the midrange of the GR8 might sound a little set-back in the overall mix, but again, I think this might be a comparatively minor complaint when considering their sound on a whole. I have often felt that other similarly priced in-ear headphones push the mids to the front of the 'stage”, but the GR8 portrays these sounds in a much more natural light. Vocals sounded like, er, vocals – and the GR8 was revealing enough to render these vocals as either well, or not so well recorded. But these “serious” listening sessions proved to be only research, because the GR8's short cord made it clear that I was not destined to listen to these in-ears whilst connected to an external preamp when seated. Yes, one could purchase Grado's forty dollar extension cable, but if one finds themselves listening with in-ear 'phones at home it is indeed time to invest in a pair of “real” headphones, and I would be remiss in not recommending a set of cans in Grado's extensive line for this purpose.
Available IEMs
There are quite a few (that's an understatement) in-ear headphones on the market in this price range. As it is with phono cartridges, a buy-and-try policy is just not feasible for with almost every retailer one is likely to encounter. So it is best is to buy from an audio retailer who's opinion you trust, and has already whittled down the selection to those they trust and have auditioned the products they sell. And experience tells me to trust Grado, who has been manufacturing well regarded audio equipment since 1953. After living with the Grado GR8 for a few months I'm impressed enough with these in-ear headphones to give them my recommendation.
Family is a true source of inspiration."
John Grado
An excerpt from
By Tom Lyle
Remarkable
Almost even before they were fully broken in, it was remarkable how much I was sonically reminded of Grado's lower priced SR series of headphones such as the '60i and '80i (I currently use the SR-80 on an almost every day basis for monitoring). This was not because with the GR8s one gets more than a taste of “high-end” sound from lowly in-ear 'phones, which is indeed true, but the voicing of the GR8 sounds exceptionally close to Grado's ”normal” line of headphones. Even though this is a highly subjective observation, it was obvious that the GR8 was better than the similarly priced, popular Shure model. A few years ago, I heard praise upon praise heaped upon this Shure in-ear headphone, which I subsequently purchased. This model eventually failed, and was replaced by their current equivalently priced model. Not only does the bass of the Grado go deeper and the treble sound more lifelike, but real instruments and voices sound much more like real instruments and real voices. Plus, I could not get a good seal with the Shure's provided standard synthetic ear tips – the only way I could get the kind of seal from the outside environment was with Shure's disposable yellow foam sleeves. These “ear plug” type sleeves did indeed form a near perfect seal, but were not only dirt and crud magnets, and wore out within a few weeks necessitating replacement. I would purchase packs of ten pairs at a time, which became not only inconvenient, but an tiresome ongoing expense.
Let us get this out of the way first: I'm not for one minute going to even entertain the notion that the sound of a pair of in-ear headphones can sonically compete with their conventional over-the-ear brethren. As far as I'm concerned, it is physically impossible. OK, I've heard some amazing cost-no-object in-ears with custom molded ear-pieces sound incredible, but it is quite amazing that for the price of an inexpensive interconnect the GR8 had me at times turning my head quickly to one side because I was startled by what I thought was a sound coming from “outside” the headphones. This suspension of disbelief didn't happen that often, but often enough on orchestral and chamber tracks played via uncompressed files. And of course that's the beauty of an iPod, tracks that deserve it can be loaded in full bandwidth (well, at least in “CD quality” or better .wav files or uncompressed Apple Lossless, or AIFF), and that's how I did my critical listening. But to be honest, most of my listening other than to evaluate the GR8 through the iPod was hardly “critical”, it was listening to guilty pleasures whilst on the go, and a good part of that was with compressed files, and in a rather noisy environment.
Still, I was able to find the time to connect the GR8 'phones to my Headroom outboard headphone amplifier being driven by the front end of the big rig, and that's when I was often taken aback by their sound quality, such as when playing a FLAC file of a movement of Sibelius' Seventh Symphony conducted by Paavo Berglund and his Chamber Orchestra of Europe on Finlandia. Not only was the all-important midrange very natural sounding (the strings of this ensemble are certainly first-rate), but I could sense the hall sound, too, as well as extraneous noise from the orchestra and conductor. As the symphony starts with its Adagio, where the winds introduce us to the main recurring theme, and as the intensity of the piece builds to its stormy (snowy?) climax, the GR8 never lost its cool (sorry). Instruments and their sections kept a respectable distance from each other in the soundstage between my ears (which I like to refer to as the headstage), and made me think that Grado knew what they were doing when they decided to design the GR8 around a single driver. The bass didn't go super-deep or have a lot of power, but was well balanced, and had enough heft to let me “feel” not only what was happening on the right side of the orchestra, but also let me hear individual instruments that had lots of bass energy.
Yet it was the treble where it set itself apart from similarly priced headphones, as each high pitched sound differentiated itself from the others. I've run into the “one-note treble” of many an inexpensive pair of 'phones in my career, and thankfully the GR8 steered well clear of this sound. Through the GR8 different cymbals could be differentiated from each other, and thankfully sounded like metal cymbals, not as if they were discharging spray-paint cans. Listening to the GR8s on pieces of music featuring vocals revealed, again, a very lifelike sound. I guess some might think that the midrange of the GR8 might sound a little set-back in the overall mix, but again, I think this might be a comparatively minor complaint when considering their sound on a whole. I have often felt that other similarly priced in-ear headphones push the mids to the front of the 'stage”, but the GR8 portrays these sounds in a much more natural light. Vocals sounded like, er, vocals – and the GR8 was revealing enough to render these vocals as either well, or not so well recorded. But these “serious” listening sessions proved to be only research, because the GR8's short cord made it clear that I was not destined to listen to these in-ears whilst connected to an external preamp when seated. Yes, one could purchase Grado's forty dollar extension cable, but if one finds themselves listening with in-ear 'phones at home it is indeed time to invest in a pair of “real” headphones, and I would be remiss in not recommending a set of cans in Grado's extensive line for this purpose.
Available IEMs
There are quite a few (that's an understatement) in-ear headphones on the market in this price range. As it is with phono cartridges, a buy-and-try policy is just not feasible for with almost every retailer one is likely to encounter. So it is best is to buy from an audio retailer who's opinion you trust, and has already whittled down the selection to those they trust and have auditioned the products they sell. And experience tells me to trust Grado, who has been manufacturing well regarded audio equipment since 1953. After living with the Grado GR8 for a few months I'm impressed enough with these in-ear headphones to give them my recommendation.