GRADO - SR80x - Prestige Series - Open Wired Stereo Headphones

Product Information

Listen with surgical precision through this metal and wood hybrid lineup. Including our flagship headphone, this family is assembled from mahogany tone-wood, clad with powder-coated or chrome plated aluminum. Substantial, influential, and unequaled sound & fury. Generation Grado drivers are here. Specifically tuned for the SR80x, this new speaker design features a more powerful magnetic circuit, a voice coil with decreased effective mass, and a reconfigured diaphragm. Reengineering these components for our 44mm drivers improve efficiency, reduces distortion, and preserves the harmonic integrity of your music. New Cables & Headband

The story of the SR80x holds a special place in not only our ears, but the ears of hundreds of thousands of listeners. The first pair was built in 1991 and we wouldn’t be here today without it. With its soundstage, world renowned mid-range, and speed, the SR80x is worthy of being the longest running Grado headphone. Headphones: DC Aeon X Closed, Sennheiser HD6XX, HD25, HD598, HE400i, Philips XR3, AKG240, Adele VK1, HD25, Meze 99 neo, Grado GS1000, RS2x, SR325x, SR60e, Audeze Sine, LCD 2 Classic, Sony MDR6V Unfortunately, our Installation Service excludes all gas appliances. It is the customer’s responsibility to find a gas safe engineer to connect the appliance. Any work conducted by a third part gas safe engineer will be at the customer’s expense and we will not accept any liability for their work. Our Installation Service only includes connecting to existing points and fixings. This does not include installing or moving plumbing, connection points or electrics. Installing new points or moving existing points is the customer’s responsibility we can recommend local tradesmen however this will be at the customer’s expense and we not accept any liability for their work. Thanks for the detailed response! Sounds like you are very well versed in Grado modding. From what you’ve written, I think you and I feel similar about most things. I feel that the driver is fundamental for the sound and everything else is impacting that sound to a lesser degree (for better or worse). Of course some of the reasons we modify is for aesthetics and not solely for sound – those wooden cups just look so nice.

Generation Grado drivers are here. Specifically tuned for the SR80x, this new speaker design features a more powerful magnetic circuit, a voice coil with decreased effective mass, and a reconfigured diaphragm. Reengineering these components for our 44mm drivers improve efficiency, reduces distortion, and preserves the harmonic integrity of your music. Prices valid in stores (all including VAT) until close of business on 31st October 2023. (Some of these web prices are cheaper than in-store, so please mention that you've seen these offers online.) Large Appliances - (Washing Machines, Dishwashers, Fridge Freezers etc). Free Local Delivery Service (Cumbria, SW Scotland and NE England*) 2-3 working days. There is one very good reason for changing the band: comfort. Grado bands are thin and unpadded. Especially if you are using the appallingly cheap vinyl headband included on the SR225 and below, replacing it with a well made padded leather band is an immense (and somewhat necessary) upgrade for long listening sessions.

For full extension, you need the G Cush salad bowls, but they distance the ear from the driver to such a degree that bass is lost, probably because of the porous side rims. What you end up with is too shrill for everything below a GS-1000. That’s where venting the drivers helps balance things out. With fully vented drivers, you can pop a pair of salad bowls on and get a very nice combo of airy treble-happy Grados with great thump. The fourth generation of SR80 gets the latest X Series drivers for reduced distortion and enhanced response. Tuned specifically for the SR80x, the combination of more powerful magnets and reduced voice coil mass helps improve the headphones efficiency and speed of response. This not only reduces distortion but also improves the harmonic response, meaning the sound is closer to the original than ever.I’m purposely overlooking cables as they fall outside the purview of this article and all testing was done with standardized high-quality copper Mogami cables. 1. Driver replacement They’re light to wear, and sit comfortably on the ears, so you can happily listen for hours. If I have one quibble: the cable is on the short side and you have to sit pretty close to any fixed hi-fi components– but this can be easily remedied with an extension cable! Grado Labs is known for hand-making each of their headphones and it is where I began my love of high fidelity headphones. Their headphones sound as good as they look with their retro-cool build. However, unknown to some, Grado is actually highly modifiable because of its DIY modular nature.

This is the type of headphones experience that forces us to listen to whole albums during our testing, and before we know it we’re emotionally engrossed in Eilish’s Your Power and stomping along carefree to Therefore I Am. Verdict Replacing the driver with a non-Grado offering has the greatest influence on the sound and character of the headphone. Popular aftermarket driver manufacturers include Symphones, Nhoord Audio and Elleven Acoustica. Symphones v8 replacement drivers 2. Shape, size and material of the ear pads The SR80x also surprised me with a “2021” playlist created by my kids filled with Drake, Lana Del Rey, Dua Lipa, Tyler, the Creator, and Olivia Rodrigo — I’m getting old apparently. The Grado SR80es are exceptional and exceptionally odd headphones; very similar to the SR80is they replace. A Prayer for Lester Bowie by David Sanford Big Band was one of my top jazz releases of 2021 and a glorious recording to really test the SR80x and compare them to my budget favorite, HiFiMan HE400se headphones.

Like the Grado SR60X, this is another example of a headset that passively amplifies noise from the surroundings. You can see this on the isolation chart where the pink line drops below the x-axis into negative attenuation (otherwise known as gain). We believe this is the result of the acoustic design of the headphones, which creates a pronounced resonance at 2kHz—the fact that ambient noise at this frequency is also boosted suggests this is achieved with an acoustic resonator. Placing the driver itself into wooden shell instead of plastic would make more sense maybe they tested it and results were NOT that great but we will never know and they will probably never tell…