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Evidently, I Need These Headphones
Life’s been interesting this past year. I left HeadRoom in April ’10; my daughter moved out and and I found myself in an empty nest; I rode thousands of miles on my motorcycle; met a lovely lady who rode her bike with me, and we married; constructed offices in my home to support my review work; and got my job here. Phew. In the process, I did a lot of organizing around the home, throwing out things I don’t need anymore, rearranging furniture, and ferreting bits and pieces into boxes. It felt good to…

Like almost all headphones of this type, variability in bass response due to variations in fit is observed in the raw data measurements of the headphones in five different positions. The performance of the PX 200-IIi is actually quite good in this regard; many small ear-pad headphones show significantly more variation.

The top graphs show the sum of the five positions for each channel, and is compensated for the acoustics of the head. Here we see an even, though somewhat bowed-up response, centered in the mid-range and falling to either side. The treble…

The Sennheiser PX 200-IIi
The Sennheiser PX 200-IIi (MSRP $149.95) is a general-purpose headset ideally suited for kids, students, and casual home, office, and travel use. It’s light and small, very well built, and will easily survive unending rounds between backpack, computer desk, and kitchen junk drawer. Best of all, it packs neatly into a very small size with a unique folding design making it only slightly larger than a pair of sunglasses when stowed. In typical Sennheiser fashion the design is elegant and understated basic black, tastefully mixing matte and gloss textures in…

Promises Kept
My first post was an exercise in getting all the bits-and-pieces together to create content. In many ways this is my first real post here ... and I want to keep a promise: For years I've said I would measure the effects of the various headphone pads on Grado headphones ... well, I am very glad to say finally, here it is.

To the best of my knowledge, there have been five basic types of stock Grado ear-pads over the years. From left to right in the photo above:

Small Flat Pad --- Originally the…

To my ears, Grados generally have two faults: the bass lacks authority; and there's a harsh spot in the low-treble around 2kHz. Fortunately, it appears that playing with the pads does indeed effect the sound mildly, and both problems above can be tinkered with.

I'll be mentioning some of the other measurements taken, if you…

The first modification for our viewing pleasure is the reverse bowls (forest green trace). You'll have to look carefully, but it does seem the bump at 2kHz is narrower, and the highs are slightly more rolled-off than the bowls. "Nicer mids; muffles highs slightly; slightly better bass slam," say my notes comparing the bowls reversed against the normal bowls. If you want to hear what flat pads sound like, flip your bowls around and it will give you the idea of what direction you'll go.

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A little headphone archeology reveals The Collected Grado Headphone Mods thread on the HeadWize archive.

The Head-Fi "Post Your Grado Mod" thread.

QQQs SR225 extreem Frankengrado mods.

Bilavideo goes crazy with a pair of Grado SR60s.

Aftermarket Pads and Modified Grados

A big thanks goes out for all the help rounding up Grado headphones and pads for this article to TTVJ who sells the Flat Pads here, and HeadRoom who sells replacement bowl pads here.

Headphile C-Pads installed on…

Oh Nooooos!
I was at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year for my first face-to-face meetings with my new boss and his boss from Source Interlink Media about the InnerFidelity start-up, when out of the blue the boss's boss says, "Say, I've got a meeting with Skullcandy this afternoon, you should come."

Ruh roh.

We high-end headphone geeks don't take too kindly to headphones painted up with pink kitties and cartoon monkeys, so I try to opt out gracefully, "Aw, geez, I dunno, they're not really my thing. They're…

The build quality is quite good, but a bit weird. Headphones from the big makers tend to be tight as a drum…

"The way it was, is not the way it is." - Jamie Oman, Skullcandy Director of Product Developement
Over the course of two days I had conversations with Dan Levine, Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer; Pete Kelly, Director of Industrial Design; and Jamie Oman, Director of Product Developement for Skullcandy. I asked very direct questions about their intentions from the outset, and throughout the design and development process with regard to the sound quality goals of the Aviators, and I was pleasantly surprised with the…