My first audiophile-ish headphone was the Q701. I still use them once in a while. The GS2000e would be a replacement for those, at my computer/work area. I love the soundstage of those. I just wish they were a bit warmer. I think I’m looking for a warm to v shaped headphone. Something less analytical that I can just enjoy the music with and focus on whatever I’m doing. I use the LCD-X in my leisure listening area.
Then once more, yes I think you’d enjoy the GS2KE!
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You got me thinking hard, now. 
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I was shocked by the sound of the Grado White headphone, and I’m an experienced Grado owner (SR325e, PS500, GW100, PS1000e, GH1, and GH3). Long story short, I boosted the midbass and cut the upper treble, and now it sounds quite good. I have a PS2000e due in three days, so that and the White are the first Grados I’ve had in 2-3 years. I use the DragonFly Cobalt and Chord Mojo DACs, sometimes alone and sometimes feeding a tube amp.
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What shocked you about the Grado White? I do like the Grado sound generally, and found that the tape mod to the L cushion improved the sound of my entry level SR-60e. Have not tried that with the RS-1e, which I like very much paired with the DFC as my portable combination. I’ve not listened as much to them with the iFi xDSD / Lyr3 combination, as I like that either with the Sennheiser HD-6xx or the Hifiman HE-580 so much that other things aren’t getting switched in much.
Oh yes, welcome and thanks for your first posting here.
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I was expecting something like the SR325e (a little warmth, slightly forward, and a balanced treble leaning toward bright, but only marginally. What I got can be seen in the EQ curve I did (my website under photos and Audioforge page 6). It seemed nearly devoid of bass with a distinctly bright treble, which combined isn’t ideal. I did some bass boost on the PS1000e, but nothing like this White headphone.
Anyway, after my adjustments I liked the overall sound and spaciousness enough to take a chance with the PS2000e. I’ve done searches for reviews of the White headphone ever since, but I don’t get a clear sense of other reviewers’ impressions from what reviews are available. The MajorHiFi review on youtube is an example of that.
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Welcome @dalethorn.
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Now that I figured out how to post a picture, I thought this one of my white headphone would be good. Of all the stock photos I’ve seen, none of them seemed to have any texture. It’s a little noisy with iPhone in low light.
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I got the PS2000e Monday, with both gimbals bent for right ears. So I tried bending the left one the other direction and it snapped off of the frame. Dumb move - I should have removed the left gimbal cap and tried doing a half turn in the frame then putting it back together. Anyway, they’re sending new parts. I rigged the left cup with some twisty-ties and got a good enough fit for a few hours of play today, following some burn-in yesterday. I was expecting an unusual signature like the PS1000e, but instead this PS2000e seems remarkably neutral, except for the deeper bass, and a little brightness up on top.
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Ooh, very nice!
Is that a custom headband or did you purchase that from somewhere? It looks comfy!
Your going all in with the Grado Sauce huh, and yea the PS2KE was pretty special! I’m curious how it would sound out of my current system, as the Audio GD Dac I had back in the day was kinda dark and bassy and really thru off the balance on PS2KE
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I probably spoke a little too soon. The PS2000e’s broad emphasis from approx. 70 to 500 hz makes the sound a bit too heavy for me. Easy enough to fix, but goes to show that these flagships exert their own personalities, strong personalities at that.
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Stock headband. Very comfy.
Gotta be honest I wouldn’t mind some emphasis from 200 to 500, a nice thicker low mid range would be nice on a grado
Though I’m not as huge a fan of having any mid bass humpyness or emphasis, though amplification wise what are you running? Mid Bass emphasis is often emphasized even more so when output impedance rises above 3 or so with a 32ohm driver,
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Good question - I’m alternating between a DF Cobalt, sometimes with a Lehmann amp, and using a Chord Mojo. The Mojo is a little tighter, but I think it’s because it has more power. Then again, the DF gets leaner with certain amps attached.
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I switched to a DFC from my DFB, but after discussion here, rarely use either of them with an external amp. The DFC is slightly rolled off on high-end response, which seems to work nicely with either of my Grados (SR-60e with tape-mod L-Pads) or RS-1e stock.
According to Audioquest, the Dragonflys (Dragonflies? Dragonfleece?) don’t actually have a line out mode, despite a reference to it in the manual. They are just running the internal amps flat out. I’ve seen on other forums (fora? Audio talk places?) people taking the manual to mean that if you set volume to max, you somehow engage a proper line-out mode. I checked with Audioquest, and this is just not true.
So now, If I’m going to be driving an amp, I use my iFi xDSD, which DOES provide a proper line out.
(Rhetorical question mode) Is this a distinction without a difference? I’m not in a position to quickly A/B and compare, but I do think based on slower comparisons that the sound is cleaner with proper line out. While I admit the placebo effect may come into play, I think the improvement is heard more when I am going to the STAX (amp and phones) than through the Lyr3 to Senn HD-6xx, Hifiman HE-560, or the Grado RS-1e.
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There are measurements of the DF’s at Stereophile and ‘Archimago’ that discuss distortions at max volumes in the “line out” mode. It seems that the Red and Cobalt have no issues, but older DF’s did in some cases.
What I find tricky is anytime there are two or more volume controls active in playback, like a computer’s vc and the music player vc, then possibly the amplifier vc when the DF DAC is used in Line Out mode to the amp.
So even if there’s “no distortion” in the DF feeding an external amp, it might be good to experiment with those other volume controls to see if the sound quality changes at different settings.
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Repeat: there is no “line out” mode. I wrote to Audioquest and their engineers confirmed that a line out mode does not exist. Its just max amplification.
My understanding is that line out would have different electrical characteristics, including impedance.
There is a thread here where @Torq gives some explanation, but I’m just checking in on the iPad, so I’m sorry, I’m not giving a pointer.
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I’ve reviewed the DFC on this site and I found that the excellent performance of the device is somewhat compromised at high volumes. So running it at full volume would not be my recommendation if you want to hear the true capabilities of DFC.
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What I haven’t found in 50 searches so far is exactly what a true Line Out looks like to the amp input, compared to the DF Cobalt or Red’s so-called line out.
I’m not expert in electronics, but I wonder if there’s something fundamentally different in the DF’s signal from a true Line Out, such as “does the DF’s signal contain more processing than a true Line Out?”, and what sort of compromises or corruption of the signal would result?