Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Received Some New Headphones Today

The Shures have a much more compact and elegant design. The AD700's are big and bulky, I consider them massive in size for a headphone but they are soooo comfortable.

I forgot to mention a feature on the Shure SRH440 is that the design can "collapse" for storage and portability. Each headphone has a low impedance and high efficieny with the Shure at 44Ohms and 105 db sensitivity. The AD700 spec at 32 Ohms and 98 db. I have tried these headphones on a Cowon D2 and SanDisk and they sound awesome with plenty of power to give. Any reputable MP3 player will power these. I also have a tube headphone amp, but have not tried using that yet .

What tube headamp do you have? I LOVE my Bottlehead S.E.X. I used to have the LD I+ but was able to 'upgrade'.

Yeah, it is nice that the Shures fold, but w/ a case, my HF2's are still a little more compact. But they don't isolate well for travel use.

I have a LD MKIII. I find it to be a great budget amp with excellent build quality. Been very reliable so far and I use it almost everyday. I purchased it based on experiences/recommendations from a few members here about the product and service. Very pleased with it.

Where do the Grado HF2's fall within their lineup. I assume it is one of their high end models?

HF2 is a special edition done for Head Fi and TTVJ.com. It's above the 325i for sure. Some compare it to the RS series, and like it better, but I never heard those.

Vs the 325i, which I've since sold, the great highs/mids are there but it's more tamed, not as fatiguing in a good way. There's also more bass and WAY more soundstage. Only 500 were made so the used prices are some times ridiculous. MSRP is $425 but I've seen some in Europe already sell on ebay for over $1K US. Crazy. And these were only shipped a few months ago.

Interesting, did not know that. So is the design all its own or is it spec'd off a certain model and tweaked? Like how Alessandro designs their headphone lineup but in this case Grado doing it to their own brand?

It's a custom tweaked design, tweaked by John himself. My box even has his signature. Yeah, appears to be how Alessandro did it.

They had an HF1 a year ago or so that was $200 and looks based off the 125i, though I could be wrong. People LOVED those, sometimes resell for double because of the limited run.

At the risk of cross posting, but in case any one is interested:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/grado-hf-2-review-comparison-thread-426905/

Thanks for the link, i'll definitely check it out. Its cool that they were limited in production and will probably have great resell value if you were so inclinded to sell. Must feel good to own a custom, limited edition pair.

Yeah, I was psyched that it would have great resell value. But the more I use them, the more I realize they aren't going away. I could see these as the cans I hand down to my kids as I teach them what REAL music should sound like.

You should find a lot of feedback on the Sony MDR-7506/V6 and the Audio Technica ATH-M50 if you are looking for a more comfortable closed model. A lot of "in the industry" folks use the 7506/v6 for studio use. I would love to try the M50's myself