96 MACWORLD JANUARY 2022
PLAYLIST REVIEW: GRADO GW100 V2 BLUETOOTH HEADPHONEanything the headphone was doing. (I
confirmed this during my comparisons;
more in a moment.)
One of my favorite big bands in high
school was the Don Ellis Orchestra. I found
only one of his albums in lossless Master
quality on Tidal, Live at Montreux, so I
listened to “Sporting Dance,” a lively tune
that features incredible dueling trombone
solos. As I had come to expect by now, the
GW100 v2 had a wide-open sound with
good tonal balance and imaging, and the
trombones were very well rendered and
separated in the stereo mix.
Lately, I’ve really been enjoying Lee
Ritenour’s solo guitar work on
Dreamcatcher. The title track features
some brilliant playing on processed
electro-acoustic guitar, which sounded
mostly excellent on the GW100 v2. The
low midrange seemed a bit thick, which
could have been the mix. Otherwise, the
guitar sounded nice and rich.
For some country rock, I listened to “It’s
’Cause I Am” by Callista Clark from her
album Real to Me. It’s a dense, satisfying
mix, which sounded great on
the GW100 v2. It had an open
sound with lots of bass—
perhaps a bit too much, but
not overbearing.
As I was looking around
Tidal for some classical music,
I came across an album of
trombone concertos entitled
Concertos & Fairytales
featuring trombonist PK
Svensen and the Malmö
Symfoniorkester from Sweden.
The album was recorded by
renowned engineer Morten
Lindberg for his high-res audio
label 2L, and the recording
quality is clearly evident. It was
superclean on the GW100 v2,
with a wide-open sound, great
imaging, superb rendering ofThe earpieces swivel to a flat position to fit in the optional
carrying case.