Love your approach in that you want to hear things for yourself! What better way if you cannot audition than to buy them? I look forward to your future purchases and experiences.
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Giving this rectifier a try, it has a hanging filament and have absolutely no idea if it makes a difference or not.
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Congrats on the many purchases. My Beyer DT 880 is competitive or superior to a lot of higher dollar stuff in the midrange and vocals (but not the lows or treble). I’m curious about how you like the 990. We can probably resurrect a small, old, shriveled Beyer thread to discuss, or create a new one.
Calling @pennstac. As with Beyer, one might seek out the typical brand experience or find exceptions to the rule.
Regarding soldering stations, the risk of fire doesn’t reach my top experienced threats. I found that I naturally placed the iron back in its spring holder without thinking. It’s the right size, right shape, and nearby. The iron is hot enough that instinct protects you.
My observed threats include: (1) Burning your hands either on the iron itself or (more often) forgetting that it heats up everything it touches. If your hands aren’t rock solid with fine details, brace your hands on a support. (2) The smell, the fumes – move to a window area or get a suction/filter fan. (3) Hot shiny solder splatters will appear everywhere below your work point when you have the correct iron temperature but use a bit too much solder. It’s not a good idea to work in shorts and bare feet. Proven fact. Keep the sponge damp and use it often.
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Thanks. Some days I regret all the mid tier purchases since pooled together I could be well on my way to my endgame (Holo-DNA?-…and don’t know which HP yet) but I never intended on diving this far in. I’m sure that’s a very familiar sentiment.
I’m enjoying the journey though and I definitely like having different HPs for moods/genres/etc. At this point the only ones I really don’t feel I need to keep is the 4xx and Senn PC37x (don’t really game anymore). The rest all get some rotation. With majority time going to the Arya and 800s.
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You should call @Lothar_Wolf and @ValentineLuke to comment on Grado, others too have far more models than I have. Well, @Audiophool, I do have a few Grado headphones, and find that the Grado that seems to make the most sense and stands up in the long run to comparables in other lines is the RS-1e, preferably with aftermarket pads from Beautiful Sound. I have the hybrid pads, and they are in absolutely every way better than the foam pads that come with Grado. Feeling on ear, quality of sound are just superior.
https://www.beautifulaudio.biz/grado-earpads-headbands
If you are looking for entry level, the SR-80 or bump up to the SR-225 as price/performance in the basic Grado line. I like the L-Cushion pads, and sound can be improved by the “tape mod” which you can search here.
I’ve liked the more expensive Grados I’ve heard, but @Lothar_Wolf can tell you more about that.
Regardless of model, they have a dopey, thick cord. I just live with it. Some people have modified or sent their Grados to a shop that replaces the cord with a sane attachable cord.
I got my RS-1e from @MCM who has a graph of it and a writeup in the Grado thread. This headphone gets a lot of listening time because it’s easy to drive. I’ve got a Geekria box that I fit them in and they are my go-to for when I’m away from the main system for a while, even more so than the Audeze LCDi3. This model has a 50mm driver, and is reported to deliver considerably more bass than the RS-2e, which I haven’t heard. The RS or reference series is the mid-line, and has very stable offerings over time. From most accounts, including mine, the RS-1e is less Grado-like on the high-end than most - in other words, nice highs, but not overdone. I find it has a wide soundstage and excellent detail.
Some people don’t find the Grados comfortable because the don’t like on-ear. The bowl pads may help that, but as I’ve said before, I can’t recommend the Beautiful Sound pads enough with these. Most Grados are pretty lightweight. @generic, I don’t know what else I can add.
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Once I realized I didn’t always want to be shackled to my home work desk (next to my amps) to listen to my headphones, but wanted something more stationary than my DAP, this became a no-brainer.
This is a fantastic sounding unit, and works well (no surprise) with the Focal Utopias. Powerful enough to drive my ZMF VCs. Terrific Roon Ready integration, too.
I can’t hear a particularly different sound signature from my Chord TT2/HMS combo, and that’s a good thing.
Going to audition all my headphones, but so far the Focal seems like it’ll be my go-to for listening through this unit.
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Great album pick. I was jamming it just last night. Very interesting instrumental pairing.
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Can’t agree more.
With Grado, as for many other producers, I believe you have two ways to behave: go cheap, get an SR80 or as you wrote buy a higher model and pay for it.
Differences in SR series are very subtle and hard to justify in price IMHO.
I’m a “cables are cables” kind of person but Grado cables… Not good being very kind.
Some time ago the owner of the hifi shop where I work told me that with Grados he had more income from cables’ swapping than from the headphones themselves. He is an hyperbolic person but some times I believe he wasn’t too much hyperbolic with his statement.
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1016211115 by drjlo2, on Flickr
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Thanks for taking the time @pennstac. Seems like the RS-1e might be a good place to get into Grados. Looks like you can find pretty good prices for used ones when they come around too.
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I’m terrible at describing audio coherently and probably worse at discerning differences but I’ll do my best.
At this point I’ve only listened to it for about half an hour but even right off the bat I was surprised by the clarity and detail. Seems like I’m not all that sensitive to treble perhaps partly due to poor hearing and also my setup is on the darker side ( Bifrost2–V280). So any problems with brightness, as others describe, weren’t immediately apparent to me.
As I spend more time with them I’ll share my thoughts in the Beyer thread.
I am curious to A/B them with my 6xx to see how they stack up with the “budget king of scaling”. Wish they were balanced to take advantage of my amp…though they get plenty loud enough off se.
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Someone should probably do a review of that stuff🤔
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Congrats! It’s a great performer. The Hugo 2 was my first Chord product. Yeah, I said first 
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Thank you @one1oh0 and welcome to the forum!
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Oh, be still my throbbing heart.
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Oh lordy. SHOW US MORE!!! 
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Here for the TOTL chair.
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