"If
you’ve been paying attention you’d notice that in more than one review
I’ve mentioned that audiophiles are quite lucky to be a participant in
high-end audio at this point in time. This should be obvious: No matter
if one chooses analog or digital, tubes or solid-state, a super-modest
system or ultra-extravagant monster rig, there are more than enough
competent manufacturers and user groups to cater to everyone’s wants and
needs. And even if one lives nowhere near a metropolitan area,
equipment, software, and kibitzing are usually just a click away. As is
the case with music, limiting oneself to a playback option of one
sub-genre is illogical. So, even though I have a large LP collection, it
is hardly an exclusive playback option – as proof there is my 4 TB
worth of hard drive space filled with music files. And as it should be,
our collections aren’t only played at home, but when we’re on the go. As
the ubiquitous iPod and its brethren invaded the aural space all but
the most traditional among us, the in-ear headphone market has been
making in-roads well into the upper echelons of the high-end. And
thankfully, and for good reason, it is unthinkable for an audiophile to
even consider using the worthless stock ear-buds that are provided by
either Apple, or any of manufacturers of portable digital players.

There are many among us that take the sound of our portable players
very seriously, and the makers of headphones of the traditional and
in-ear varieties have responded with many fine models to choose from,
and there are also very high quality portable headphone amplifiers
available as well. And it also should be obvious to all that have been
paying attention that the iPod is making itself at home among our humble
high-end systems. I’m not here to debate the merits of this device
(it’s far too late for that). But I do own a loaded iPod, and spend
countless hours listening to it when not at home. I also want it, if
possible, to sound good, but I’m not ready to drop a wad of cash on the
project as of yet. So I (as many other audiophiles it seems) have also
enjoyed many a Grado product through the years, and we’ve come to expect
a certain level of not only value from this company, but excellent
sound as well. Enter the Grado GR8 in-ear headphone.

On Grado’s website it makes clear right off the bat that the GR8s
were the brainchild of not proprietor John Grado, but his sons Jonathan
and Matthew. Grado states that "they realized the need to offer our
customers a Grado in-ear headphone" and that they were "instrumental in
the process of voicing the GR8". At first that didn’t sit so well with
me – I’d be more comfortable with the techs at Grado doing the voicing,
but then I realized that it did say that they only were "instrumental",
and after only a short audition it was obvious that no matter who had
their hands in the birth of this product the end result, that is, the
GR8, speaks for itself. In fact, the Grado spent over two years in
research and development before these headphones were ready for the big
time. Yet many will wonder why they chose to follow John’s son’s advice
and enter the very crowded in-ear market, especially at this popular
price-point. This will probably forever be unknown. They are also in no
doubt subjecting themselves to the often vicious opinions of gadget
web-bloggers that will undoubtedly either praise or trash the GR8 for
reasons that will also forever be unknown. But what these dilettantes
might not realize is that Grado Labs products are hardly known for
trendy, fly-by-night products. Longevity is a rare thing these days, yet
many a component in the Grado line has lasted decades, and for good
reason.

Rewarding

Speaking by phone with Grado rep John Chen was both rewarding and
frustrating – rewarding in that Mr. Chen was very proud of this product,
as he has the right to be – but also frustrating in that he was willing
to divulge little about the construction and specifications of the GR8
in-ear headphones other a bit more than what was stated on the short
blurb on Grado’s website. He did share with me that Grado did spend, as I
said, two years designing and testing the GR8. He also stressed that
Grado was very proud of the fact that the left and right drivers of the
‘phones were matched within 0.2 decibels of each other, and that that
Grado was insistent that the midrange of the headphones had a level of
clarity as not to harm the musical structure as a result of any lack of
same. This, said John, would ensure that details such as the decay of
each note of music would remain totally intact. Other than those details
I was pretty much on my own (and Grado’s website) to investigate and/or
discover the benefits of Grado’s design. But those who know me are
aware that I’m more interested in the performance of a product than
anything else. And since you are reading this magazine, I assume you
are, too.

Some might find it curious that at this price point (not to mention
its high level of performance, but more on that in a bit) that the GR8
relies on a single driver. Many similarly priced units use two, or even
three separate drivers. But again, it’s the end result that counts, and
at least for now, we’re going to throw our trust to Grado and assume
that they had their reasons for only using this single driver. This
"moving armature" driver is snuggled into the ear canal with the help of
a choice of three provided silicon/rubber inserts: small, medium, and
large. The medium-sized fit surprisingly well into my ear with only a
bit of play while I was moving about. They were also very comfortable,
sometimes they were planted in my ears for hours with no discomfort
whatsoever – which is more than I can say for the many, many other
brands of in-ear headphones that didn’t have custom-molded sleeves.
Grado uses a rather thin cable fitted with oxygen-free copper wire. Of
course the conductivity and resistance of a cable is important, but more
so, at least when used as with a portable device the physical noise of
the cable contacting one’s clothing causing an intrusive shuffling. At
with the GR8 this was minimal. The 51" cable might seem rather short,
but only when using the GR8s for anything but portable listening. It
reached the iPod on my belt or in jacket pocket perfectly, with no
unnecessary excess. The left and the right ear-pieces were identified
not by an "L" or "R" printed on the sides of either in microscopic font,
but by a raised mark on the left earphone so it could be correctly
identified by touch. Thank you very much, Mr. Grado.

The sensitivity rating that Grado specifies for the GR8 might raise
some eyebrows. One might even be concerned to whether the GR8 can be
driven by a portable device. If they cannot, and one must rely on an
outboard headphone amplifier for listening, thus limiting the ‘phones to
"enthusiast" use, Grado would obviously fail in their mission to
provide decent in-ear ‘phones to the masses. Curiously, the impedance of
the GR8 as stated on their website is a high-ish 120 Ohms (for
comparison sake, Apple’s stock ear-buds are rated at 23 Ohms, and my
Sennheiser HD-600 cans are rated at 300 Ohms). But fear not – those who
think that the GR8’s 120 Ohm rating will require an external headphone
will be pleasantly surprised that they had no trouble whatsoever being
driven by an iPod. And that’s how I did the bulk of my listening before
sitting down to write this review. Yes, the volume needed to be turned
higher than when using even the comparably priced Shure SE310 which is
rated at a low 28 Ohms. But even plugging them directly into my laptop’s
headphone jack volume wasn’t an issue.

The GR8s aren’t advertised as "noise-canceling" or even
"noise-isolating". But the "ear tips" (as Grado calls them) fit very
well, and formed a very good seal between the music coming from the iPod
and my outside world. I not only used them whilst walking around the
busy streets of the city, but on a very long flight over the both the
continental USA and the Pacific Ocean. I never once thought that traffic
or engine noise interfered more than I expected from this type of
headphone. I guess some electronic noise-canceling would have done a
better job (at the expense of the sound quality), and of course custom
molded ear-pieces would have done an even better job (at the expense of
the expense). But then we’re entering into different categories of
headphone listening (and price), and it is better to compare apples to
apples (no pun intended).

Remarkable

Almost even before they were fully broken in, it was remarkable how
much I was sonically reminded of Grado’s lower priced SR series of
headphones such as the ’60i and ’80i (I currently use the SR-80 on an
almost every day basis for monitoring). This was not because with the
GR8s one gets more than a taste of "high-end" sound from lowly in-ear
‘phones, which is indeed true, but the voicing of the GR8 sounds
exceptionally close to Grado’s "normal" line of headphones. Even though
this is a highly subjective observation, it was obvious that the GR8 was
better than the similarly priced, popular Shure model. A few years ago,
I heard praise upon praise heaped upon this Shure in-ear headphone,
which I subsequently purchased. This model eventually failed, and was
replaced by their current equivalently priced model. Not only does the
bass of the Grado go deeper and the treble sound more lifelike, but real
instruments and voices sound much more like real instruments and real
voices. Plus, I could not get a good seal with the Shure’s provided
standard synthetic ear tips – the only way I could get the kind of seal
from the outside environment was with Shure’s disposable yellow foam
sleeves. These "ear plug" type sleeves did indeed form a near perfect
seal, but were not only dirt and crud magnets, and wore out within a few
weeks necessitating replacement. I would purchase packs of ten pairs at
a time, which became not only inconvenient, but a tiresome ongoing
expense.

Let us get this out of the way first: I’m not for one minute going to
even entertain the notion that the sound of a pair of in-ear headphones
can sonically compete with their conventional over-the-ear brethren. As
far as I’m concerned, it is physically impossible. OK, I’ve heard some
amazing cost-no-object in-ears with custom molded ear-pieces sound
incredible, but it is quite amazing that for the price of an inexpensive
interconnect the GR8 had me at times turning my head quickly to one
side because I was startled by what I thought was a sound coming from
"outside" the headphones. This suspension of disbelief didn’t happen
that often, but often enough on orchestral and chamber tracks played via
uncompressed files. And of course that’s the beauty of an iPod, tracks
that deserve it can be loaded in full bandwidth (well, at least in "CD
quality" or better .wav files or uncompressed Apple Lossless, or AIFF),
and that’s how I did my critical listening. But to be honest, most of my
listening other than to evaluate the GR8 through the iPod was hardly
"critical", it was listening to guilty pleasures whilst on the go, and a
good part of that was with compressed files, and in a rather noisy
environment.

Still, I was able to find the time to connect the GR8 ‘phones to my
Headroom outboard headphone amplifier being driven by the front end of
the big rig, and that’s when I was often taken aback by their sound
quality, such as when playing a FLAC file of a movement of Sibelius’
Seventh Symphony conducted by Paavo Berglund and his Chamber Orchestra
of Europe on Finlandia. Not only was the all-important midrange very
natural sounding (the strings of this ensemble are certainly
first-rate), but I could sense the hall sound, too, as well as
extraneous noise from the orchestra and conductor. As the symphony
starts with its Adagio, where the winds introduce us to the main
recurring theme, and as the intensity of the piece builds to its stormy
(snowy?) climax, the GR8 never lost its cool (sorry). Instruments and
their sections kept a respectable distance from each other in the
soundstage between my ears (which I like to refer to as the headstage),
and made me think that Grado knew what they were doing when they decided
to design the GR8 around a single driver. The bass didn’t go super-deep
or have a lot of power, but was well balanced, and had enough heft to
let me "feel" not only what was happening on the right side of the
orchestra, but also let me hear individual instruments that had lots of
bass energy.

Yet it was the treble where it set itself apart from similarly priced
headphones, as each high pitched sound differentiated itself from the
others. I’ve run into the "one-note treble" of many an inexpensive pair
of ‘phones in my career, and thankfully the GR8 steered well clear of
this sound. Through the GR8 different cymbals could be differentiated
from each other, and thankfully sounded like metal cymbals, not as if
they were discharging spray-paint cans. Listening to the GR8s on pieces
of music featuring vocals revealed, again, a very lifelike sound. I
guess some might think that the midrange of the GR8 might sound a little
set-back in the overall mix, but again, I think this might be a
comparatively minor complaint when considering their sound on a whole. I
have often felt that other similarly priced in-ear headphones push the
mids to the front of the ‘stage", but the GR8 portrays these sounds in a
much more natural light. Vocals sounded like, er, vocals – and the GR8
was revealing enough to render these vocals as either well, or not so
well recorded. But these "serious" listening sessions proved to be only
research, because the GR8’s short cord made it clear that I was not
destined to listen to these in-ears whilst connected to an external
preamp when seated. Yes, one could purchase Grado’s forty dollar
extension cable, but if one finds themselves listening with in-ear
‘phones at home it is indeed time to invest in a pair of "real"
headphones, and I would be remiss in not recommending a set of cans in
Grado’s extensive line for this purpose.

Available IEMs

There are quite a few (that’s an understatement) in-ear headphones on
the market in this price range. As it is with phono cartridges, a
buy-and-try policy is just not feasible for with almost every retailer
one is likely to encounter. So it is best is to buy from an audio
retailer who’s opinion you trust, and has already whittled down the
selection to those they trust and have auditioned the products they
sell. And experience tells me to trust Grado, who has been manufacturing
well regarded audio equipment since 1953. After living with the Grado
GR8 for a few months I’m impressed enough with these in-ear headphones
to give them my recommendation."