Selection Guide

I purchased a set of Grado SR60i's from Headroom in July 2005 and they remain one of my favorite headphones. Everytime I listen to music I miss these, whether it be in my roommate's car with its $600+ sound system or listening to music on a pair of Sony MDR CD250 headphones a friend bought long ago for MSRP because he didn't know any better. If you're looking for a first step into audiophilia and need sound quality to come first, this should be the one. My only gripe is that the construction quality of them is not THE most durable; within the first year of everyday (2+ hours/day) use, the leather of the headband kept slipping off of a metal part connected to the plastic "L" on the left side, meaning the headphones would separate completely from then on unless I was careful. I would not recommend these for outdoor or exercise use AT ALL, since all I did with them was use them on my computer and they still started to come apart after the first year. I admit these were my first pair of audiophile-quality headphones, so I probably could've been more careful with them than I was, but I still expected them to be slightly more durable. Otherwise, one of the best purchases I've ever made, and these definitely opened my ears to how good sound can be.

Grado SR60i's looks aren't the coolest (for me, that would be the Denon AH-D7000), but you get what you pay for in that regard. For me, their looks are fine, and so I deduct no stars for this. Besides, these are not recommended for outdoor or "wearing while on the train to work"-type listening; who's going to see you when most reviewers recommend this for home use only?

The Grado SR60i was very uncomfortable the first few times I put it on! For the first couple of sessions, the flat earpads hurt my earlobes after a couple hours' use. But after a week or so of wearing them in, I no longer noticed they were even on my head, even while wearing for 8+ hours at a time. I'm a tall guy and have a rather large head size (I usually have to put baseball caps to the 80% notch, unless I have my hair shaved bald), so I was quite worried they would not fit properly. Fit like a glove, but they do require wearing in before that happens.

Also, please keep in mind before purchasing the Grado SR60i that they WILL leak out whatever you're listening to even if you listen at low-mid volumes. This can be a problem if you value your privacy, but otherwise the audio quality is unmatched for under $150USD. For me, the sound quality was worth it, but it did bother me that I'd be asked to turn my volume down by someone in the same room when my music wasn't even past 30% of max.

As for Headroom's service, the product came shipped when they said it would, and there were absolutely no problems with my purchase or with contacting them to ask about availability. I even remember talking to Headroom over the phone to see where they were located so that I could estimate which shipping option to pick. Very great customer service, and I will be purchasing all my headphones from them in the future (as I have since 2005).

I won't be buying the Grado SR60i again for myself because their mind-blowing sound quality has convinced me to go all the way and purchase a $700+ set with an additional DAC/AMP (whenever I can afford that). However, I will be buying the Grado SR60i again for anyone I meet in the future who loves music but has never heard what a great pair of headphones really sound like. The difference is night and day.

(P.S. These headphones made it a good 4-1/2 years of everyday use before they had to be retired. I babied them for the last two years and they lasted for another year with my mom after I moved away from home.)

Much has been said of these headphones, and so I won't spend time on the sound itself. Great midrange; a bright, forward, almost "in-your-face" presentation; great for rock and lousy for classical; an absolute steal in terms of value, yada yada yada. On the whole, I love these babies as I have rarely ever loved any other piece of audio equipment (not to mention I feel like a rebel using them with my white iPad, teehee).

What I want to do here is raise concerns about their construction. The first pair I ordered saw one of the earcups fall right off of their metal rod after a mere two days. After the vendor sent me a replacement, they went about two months or so before the left driver developed a maddening rattle right around 100 Hz, that I could not make go away no matter how much time I spent looking for imperfections in the grill between the earpad and the driver, or trying to blow dust out of the back. They have since been sent to Brooklyn for repairs and subsequently returned to me—after which I started to hear the same problem in the right driver. This, most fortunately, was easily fixed by removing a loose thread in aforementioned grill with a pair of tweezers.

All in all, though, I have found all this to be worthwhile. The warranty is wonderful, especially considering that you can still have Grado re-cable or fix them even after it has expired for a mere $25. I don't know if my experience is at all common with these cans (the searching I've done on Google and Head-Fi leads me to believe it's not). I just wanted to throw all this out there, and you may want to take it into consideration when deciding whether or not to buy these.

I have a pointy head - or more accurately, my head is sharper rather than rounder across the top. It's limited me to in-ear phones which I really enjoy the sound of but don't like the feel, or ultra-lights, which tend to have so-so sound quality. I saw lots of great reviews of these, Headphone.com puts them in their top 10, one reviewer thought they were comfortable... so I gave them a try. I wanted an open back phone for when I was processing and editing photos and needed to be able to hear the door or the dogs.

The sound quality is much better than the price would suggest. I find that they drive quite well from my photo workstation computer headphone jack, and while my test of a headphone is, are they great when listened to at low volumes (yep) these hold together just fine when I crank up the volume.

They do look a little retro - I had a set of headphones for my crystal radio kit in 1960 that had the same earpiece system. May even have been Grado phones. While they'll not win any beauty contests, I'll bet they're pretty durable, too.

After a half hour on my head, ow ow ow ow, pain on top. My comfort rating is based on my personal comfort, and if your head isn't pointy, these may be just fine in comfort, so you could enjoy the excellent sound quality. As I said, it's a problem I've had with many headphones. I finally found two that are very comfortable on my head, and I'm soooo happy, but they're both closed back, so I'm still in search of my open-backed phones. I'll probably give these to my son, who's rounder on top, and envy him the gift, and buy some open backs that have headsets designed like the comfortable 'phones I bought at the same time as these.