Grado GH3 Heritage Series Headphones
Australian Hi-Fi 19
a little left over (for bigger heads). The head-
phone band has a leather-look cover, which I
suspect is a synthetic. The light weight of the
GH3s means that they need not apply much
pressure on your head in order to stay firmly
fixed in place, a factor that’s important for
on-ear models. I find that if on-ear models
grip too tightly on my ears they begin to get
uncomfortable after just a short a while. Just
as importantly, I found that they still gripped
tightly enough that they stayed firmly in
place even when I shook my head around
rather more than I’d ever be likely to do in
real life. The result? I found these head-
phones comfortable to wear.
The cables are fixed. They join to both
cups and are combined into one cable a cou-
ple of hundred millimetres under one’s chin.
This cable is terminated with a 3.5mm plug,
and a 6.35mm adaptor is provided.
Headphone storage is made super-easy and
convenient by the fact that the headphone
cups can rotate 90 degrees, meaning that you
can pack them away without them occupying
too much space... but you’ll have to supply
your own case or bag, since none is provided.LISTENING SESSIONS
I briefly tried the headphones on a Yamaha
home theatre receiver, whose headphone
output has a claimed output impedance of
100Ω, which is relatively low. The impedance
mis-match clearly hurt the sound, not only
boosting the bass noticeably, but also adding
a level of harshness to
music which was best
avoided.
Switching to a Pio-
neer XDP-30R portable
music player enabled
the headphones to
deliver highly satisfy-
ingly-loud levels with
Eminem’s Stan, even
with the Pioneer player
in its Euro-compliant
low-output ‘Headphone mode’. I then gained
much pleasure listening to all the other
tracks on ‘The Marshall Mathers LP’. The bass
was appropriately hip-hop-forward without
being overblown. This album can easily
sound tiring with ear gear that is too strong
in the treble. Instead, these headphones
kept everything very smooth and listenable,
and that impression was maintained when I
moved to a DAC/headphone amplifier with a
higher output.
Moving to Tzimon Barto’s ‘Liszt Recital’
on EMI, this usually over-bright, sometimes
slightly thin, recording is granted good
body and weight by the Grado GH3s. In
the quieter parts the complex sounds of the
hammer blows on the strings were faithfully
conveyed. Only the climax at the end of the
second Hungarian Rhapsody ended up a little
muddied, as though the drivers retained a
little unexpended energy even after the signal
relaxed. But this is a monstrously difficult
passage.
The restrained—dare I say ‘mellow’—de-
livery usefully made such tracks as Lay Down
(Melanie Safka) nicely listenable. Often with
high quality gear the notable deficiencies due
to the recording of massed vocals at the tail
end of the 1960s are emphasised, making the
track sound barely tolerable.
Overall, despite the open-back design, I
wouldn’t describe the sound as very ‘airy’.
It’s up-close, personal and right in your ears.
That makes it involving, and it certainly
seemed very accurate... indeed, precise.
Even though I complained that the
headphones may not have managed the
complexity of some of the Liszt, when moved
to the classic Telarc 1812 Overture, I noticed
that even when the orchestral bells kicked inThe Grado GH3 Heritage
headphones delivered highly
satisfyingly-loud levels with
Eminem’s Stan
towards the end, the coherence of the work
was excellent, with the many, many dynamic
peaks being discernible within the mix, ring-
ing through the massed orchestra. The bass
drum strikes earlier in the piece had good
authority, without being overblown.
Importantly, I was able to achieve satisfy-
ing listening levels during the orchestral sec-
tions, thanks to the good sensitivity of these
headphones. Yet when the cannons let loose
at the end, the headphones coped well.
Likewise when the massed percussion
strikes in the Schedrin arrangement of Bizet’s
Carmen come in—well, if there was any dy-
namic compression, it was far from obvious.
There was good detail in the violins of
the Schubert’s String Quintet in C (Alban Berg
Quartet with Heinrich Schiff), without any
sense of grating. The reverberation of the kick
drum in Primus’ Southbound Pachyderm came
through the mix very nicely, proving that the
delivery was clean.
Finally, not once was there any mechani-
cal noise from the headphones... no creaking,
no sound of the cable chafing on nearby ob-
jects. All I could hear was music—plus room
noise, thanks to the open-back design.
These headphones are not really suitable
for use with things like AV receivers, since the
high output impedances that are usually pres-
ent on such components will mess up their
tonal balance. But they will work perfectly
when plugged into any high-quality portable
audioplayeroranyhigh-qualityhomehead-
phoneamplifier. Stephen DawsonCONTACT DETAILSBrand: Grado
Model: GH
RRP: $
Distributor: BusiSoft AV Pty Ltd
Address: 158 Christmas Street
HðŁƓǠěŗēÙV ̊˗˞˟
TF̵ ̆ ̊˗˗˟˟˟ ̋˗ ̇
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E: [email protected]
W: http://www.busisoft.com.au̴ Smooth, enjoyable sound
̴ Excellent value
̴ HŭŗēǡðƧijŭƓƧƓðŢƛƐŭƓƧðƧŁŭŢ̴ Requires low impedance
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performance
̴ On-ear design may be a
drawback for some listeners
̴ Little isolation from ambient
noise