Grado SR325 Professional Headphones

The Grado SR325 (now sold as the 325i) may well be the Jan Brady of the Grado product line. Brooklyn-based Grado Labs makes some of the world's finest cans but not on the cheap. Their flagship GS1000 costs a cool grand while the classic RS1 will set you back seven bills. To reach the rest of us, Grado has a more cost-conscious line, the Prestige Series, the darling of which is the SR60. While not quite as cheap as the street-level iGrado, the SR60's price of $69 makes it Grado's best bang for the buck - and it has the trophies to prove it.

So, the Grado 325 finds itself "living small" between the namesake and the baby, a middle child oft-overlooked by those who either want the best money can buy or the cheapest Grado in the house. But if you're looking for a less expensive version of Grado's top cans - a Rollex in a Timex box - the 325 is open for business. It only took me a month to go from the SR80 to the 325i, and while I now own both the RS1 and the GS1000, I still go back to my 325i's which leave me "rockin' like a hurricane." Grado makes better cans, but for two and three times the price, and for certain jobs, this is the best tool in the shed.

THE GRADO SOUND

All Grados are built around the same architectural style. It's not pretty (Grados look very retro) and comfort is, at best, an afterthought (most of these phones grip your head for dear life). With their open-air design, Grados universally leak sound like water through a sieve. That's because founder Joseph Grado was a sound junkie. Where other companies have invested in space-age plastic and nifty features like "noise cancellation" and "wireless" technology, Grado Labs has always been about the sound. Old Joe knew that a great pair of drivers can punch out lousy sound when the sound signature has been muddied by resonance. Because of their intimacy with the ears, headphones are an unforgiving environment for standing waves and resonance caused by the shape and material of the headphone enclosure. All you have to do is cup your ears and see how quickly an enclosure can affect sound. Rather than come up with high-tech ways to compensate for putting the drivers into a matching pair of ash trays, Grado reinvented the headphone by scrapping anything that adds unnecessary resonance.

The result is an open-air design that sounds incredibly clean and clear. Your neighbors may not appreciate the "noise" but at least that noise is in their ears, not yours. Every Grado - from the GS1000 to the iGrado - is doing virtually the same thing. It's just that the system at work comes in varying levels of purity. If you're willing to plunk out the big bucks, you can get mahogany-clad chambers and a real leather headband. But if you're looking for a deal - and you want to see how far up the ladder goes - the 325 is a great choice. At $295, it's not free cheese but it's the king of the Prestige Series, getting you as close to the big boys as your budget may allow.

IT'S IN THE DETAILS

If the "Grado sound" is about stripping away the inessential, the key question is where to strip and where to leave well enough alone. Stated another way, audiophiles on a budget must ask what compromises they're willing to make if they want to get as much "Grado sound" as their dollars will buy. All Grados have 40mm drivers, which are vented, but not all drivers are made from the same materials. While the Statement and Reference series use ultra high purity long crystal copper, in both the driver and the connecting cord, only the 325s can boast the same. For a hundred dollars less, the 225s will give you UHLPC copper in the voice coil but switch to standard copper in the connecting cord. At $150, the SR125s are completely outfitted with standard copper. This affects the purity of the sound signature produced by the driver. Only the 325 gives you the driver purity of the Mahogany set (which includes the $500 RS2).

GRILLING WITH THE BIG BOYS

If the elimination of resonance matters, you'll want the best grill for the job. The architecture and material of the rear grill affect airflow. Like all its brothers in the Prestige Series, the 325 features a subtle form of Grado-based sabotage: It features a plastic model-number button in the very center of the rear grill. It's a pretty little accessory but one that actually undermines the point of having a rear grill. Fortunately, this little button pops right off. It's the rest of the grill that distinguishes the 325 from its cheaper siblings. For while it retains the metal grill of the Mahogany set, only the SR225 does the same. The rest of the Grados, from the 125 down, use a plastic grill, a material whose characteristics make them less transparent. The plastic grills on these cheaper Grados is still preferable to the backstops of closed-air phones, but with the 325, it's a compromise you don't have to make.

THE MIDDLE PATH

After wiring and grilling, the biggest difference between the Mahogany set and the cheapest Grados is the housing. If you pay enough, you can house your cans with an air chamber made from cured mahogany. Otherwise, you get plastic. Most headphones are made from plastic, which is certainly an inexpensive and adaptable material, but in terms of its sound characteristics, plastic leaves a lot to be desired. What can you have if mahogany is not in the budget but plastic is a rotten way to treat the music you love? The 325 goes for low-resonance aluminum. On the original 325, this was silver. For the 50th anniversary, the company came out with gold-colored chambers, giving the metal a brass-like look - evocative of a musical instrument. I don't know what difference aluminum makes, how it measures up to mahogany or how much better it sounds than plastic, but it sure looks cool.

One area in which the aluminum pays off is in the bass response of these phones. Compared to its plastic counterparts, the 325's bass is simply more prominent. I'm not sure how that works, unless metal communicates the bass better than plastic. Whatever the case, in a side-by-side comparison between these cans and its lesser siblings, only the SR60s give them a run for the money - and that's because it sacrifices soundstage to do so. The SR60's smaller pads put the ear closer to the drivers, enabling the wearer to feel pounding bass but at the cost of narrowing the soundstage. In fact, while the SR60's bass is notoriously punchy, the 325 features a deeper bass (Compare its range of 18-24khz to the SR60's 20-20khz). It also features full-size ear pads, to give the wearer a more balanced serving of sound.

A FEW MORE WORDS ABOUT THAT SOUNDSTAGE

Grado's "house sound" is a matter of taste. Some consider it "brash" and too "up front," particularly those who prefer "laid back" cans, like the Sennheiser HD 650, which put the listener further back in the concert hall. Grado listeners must be a rowdier lot because they get bored in the nosebleed section. Grado fanatics like to get smashed in the face, right up front where the action is going hot and heavy. Grados are about the midrange, where awesome details hide. Even the runts of the litter feature amazing clarity but by the time you get to the 325, you're exploring new terrain. If you like the "Grado sound," the SR325i will give it to you in spades, and at a reasonable price. If you find it too busy, these headphones will remind you of why you never liked Grado to begin with.

That said, my appreciation for the 325i didn't ripen until both shoes fell. The first was a full burn-in. People who buy these cans and complain are those who form an opinion too early. Right out of the box, a pair of SR60s still need a burn-in, but they and the iGrados are almost as good as they're going to get. Within weeks of use, the low-end Grados go from good to great, but the 325 starts somewhere between those points (better than good but far from great) until they've been properly burned in. Realistically, I'd give it 100 hours. Just hook these bad boys up (at a reasonable level) and let them run - night and day if you can. Until you've broken them in, the 325s will sound "brash" and you'll wonder why you spent the extra money for a set of cans that don't sound measurably better than the plastics.

But give it that hundredth hour and your convictions will change on a dime. The details these cans provide are very nice.

And that brings me to the other shoe. Ironically, my opinion of these phones improved when I bought Grado's top-two models: the GS1000 and the RS1. It's not that I don't enjoy the fruit at the top of the Grado tree, but that the sonic similarities between the 325i and the RS1 make them a better buy than their $300 price tag might suggest. Even more pointed is the difference between these cans and the GS1000, which opts for a wider, more open, soundstage. In so doing, the GS1000 provides the most crystal clarity, deepest bass and comfort that puts it in a class all its own. But the first thing I missed, when I put on those GS1000s, was the immediacy of the soundstage. While the GS1000 still offers a much more "up front" approach than its counterparts at Sennheiser and AKG, I missed the intimacy I took for granted with my 325i. As John Grado, current president of Grado Labs, has put it, you can't have it both ways. You can't be both "up front" and have a "larger soundstage." While the GS1000 provides the most luxurious soundstage of any Grado, there's something to be said about letting the sound smack you around, and that's something you get from the 325. The raw energy of this phone is as addictive as cigarettes. You can tell me how much happier I'll be with a soft, velvety GS1000, but sometimes I'm in the mood to chainsmoke some midrange. The 325 lets me do that.

If the GS1000 had a theme song, it would be "Comfortably Numb." For the SR325i, that song would have to be "Now You're Messing With a Song of a B#tch." Both are good choices (Right now, I'm listening to Earth, Wind and Fire in my GS1000s and I'm happy for that soundstage). It's not about good and bad, but about good and better.