Back in about 2003 I was really getting into listening to music. I was tired of lame computer speakers and my gameboy headphones from 1989 were no longer cutting it. To satisfy my desire to have clear, quality audio I got a pair of Grado SR-80 headphones. Grado Labs isn’t as famous to the average music enthusiast as Sennheiser or Sony but around Hi-Fi audiophiles Grado has made a name for themselves for providing a very crisp, neutral sound that is true to the source material.
Grado Labs is based out of Brooklyn and is a family owned business with the sole purpose of manufacturing quality high-end audio products and it shows. They make a wide range of headphones going from $49 iGrado street-style headphones all the way up to crazy $1695 PS1000. The SR-80s were about $95 when I bought them. The main selling point for me was that they offered a sound that was comparable to headphones that cost significantly more. If your experience with headphones is limited to the cheap white ones that came with your ipod then you are missing out on lot of detail in your music.
In about 2005 my headphones died due to a loose connection in one of the drivers – probably because of over use. After a brief attempt at repairing them myself which resulted in a mess of solder, I gave up not wanting to risk doing more damage. In May of 2007 I was still bummed that these great headphones were going to waste because of a tiny wire so I decided to send a message to Grado to see if they could repair them. Despite the fact that the headphones were a few years old they told me to send it in to the factory.
Holy Crap could a company really be that cool?
Thanks to my laziness I wouldn’t find out for another 2 years. At the beginning of July I decided to take a chance and mailed off the headphones along with a letter explaining my situation. I figured my options were to either trash these headphones which were going on nearly 3 years of not being used or to send them off to Grado where the worst that could happen is that they would be recycled.
Well today I got an unexpected delivery in the mail from Grado. In the box were my repaired headphones free of charge and they sound as good as they ever have.
Thank you so much Grado!
