Until I replied to a recent forum question on headphones, I never knew how passionate people were about their headphones. For me, headphones have been rather utilitarian. I used them mainly when recording just for feedback (not literally.)

Since Podcasting, I’ve been wearing headphones much more as I work and listen Podcasts without bothering the rest of the family. I’ve also come to appreciate “good” sounding phones versus the cheapies I used to wear in radio.

It started when I was looking for Grados. Almost universally, Grados are considered the Roll-Royce of headphones. I was also shocked that their popular SR60’s are very reasonably priced at about $70 street price. You won’t find Grados at the corner superstore. Even most of the guys at Samash and Guitar Center said Grad-who? By mistake, I found a pair of SR60’s at Virgin Megastore at Downtown Disney. At $69, my credit card was out quicker than you can say “frequency-response-curve.”

So, I immediately fell in love with these cans. The 60’s had a nice clean response. They were fairly comfortable and sounded better than anything I had tried in the past. The bass was clean and full, but not overdone. The midrange grabs you and the highs are firm, not brittle.

Unfortunately, I listened a bit too loud to a promo one day and I noticed a “boom” in the right ear (well, not my ear, but the headphone itself.) With most phones, I would have just moved on and bought another pair. I just couldn’t let these great phones go. After a quick call to Grado, where a human answered the phone and graciously said, “send them in and we’ll take care of it.”

Considering the nice response from Grado, I couldn’t help but ask about the SR80’s. Before I knew it, Laura and I were listening on a pair of Grado SR80’s. The SR60’s sounded great. The SR80’s sounded like someone opened the French Doors on a beautiful Spring day. The 80’s had the same nicely defined bass, the midrange opened up and the highs were so gentle and crisp, I could feel them.

I can only wonder what the 125, 225 and 325i’s sound like. Maybe another day. In the meantime, the SR80’s are better than I could have imagined, while my SR60’s are being nursed back to good listening.

Check out the best sounding pair of listening cans I’ve found at Grado Labs.

Filed under: Podcasting