X-bit labs

Grado SR325i and Sennheiser HD 600: Professional Headphones Reviewed (page 7)

Category: Multimedia

by Sergey Romanov , Oleg Artamonov

[ 12/27/2007 | 12:31 PM ]

Conclusion

The Sennheiser HD 600 should be commended for its ergonomics. These headphones sit firmly and comfortably on the head, providing some sound insulation. Their sound doesn’t change much when the cups change the position slightly relative to your ears.

The design of the Grado SR325i isn’t that handy. They are heavier and less tolerant to head movements. This design is also not optimal in terms of acoustics. The Grado headphones just call for larger ear-pads but the manufacturer offers no alternative and the audiophile will have to make ones with his own hands. But after this modification, you can drop out of the real world for a long time, listening to album after album and even enjoying compositions you have never liked before.

Unfortunately, no model in this review is universal although the Grado SR325i is close to that status. At the same time, it is hard not to notice a number of objective drawbacks of its design, including the stiff and rather short cable. So, if you’ve got a high-quality amplifier capable of providing a low distortion coefficient at a load of 32 Ohms, if you can sit at a distance of no more than 1.5 meters from it, if you are listening to music motionless and in full silence, and if you are ready to tamper with the ear-pads all the time, you can really enjoy these headphones. But don’t forget that the people around you will be listening to your music as well, but won’t get as much pleasure from that.

The Sennheiser HD 600 needs an amplifier, too. Not all home appliances are capable of providing a sufficient volume and smooth frequency response for high-resistance headphones without an amplifier’s help. If you are planning to buy this model, make sure the device you are going to connect it to will work normally with it. Otherwise, you have to buy an additional amplifier.

Do you need such expensive headphones anyway? Yes, they differ from simpler models when reproducing almost all music genres, so the difference in price between the Grado SR80 and SR325i is justifiable. The question is if this difference matters for you personally, but you are the only person who can produce the answer after comparing different headphones. We hope this review has made you interested in such an exciting subject as high-quality audio.