‘Exotic’ isn’t a word we have associated with Grado headphones… until now
Grado’s relationship with wood is as unequivocal, if not as famous, as Lego’s with plastic. The Brooklyn-based, family-owned brand was only a year into hand-building its first headphones when, as the story goes, John Grado (son of the company’s founder, Joseph) woke up one night with the idea of creating a wooden pair and immediately went downstairs to start carving out what would become the RS1.
That inspired further Grado wood creations in the mid-’90s, and today just under half of Grado’s models in its wired open back headphone line-up are aestheticlly defined by those familiar circular wooden earcups.
Grado has always been fond of the warm tonal character that wood brings, and that proclivity hasn’t served the company half bad over the decades.
If it ain’t broke…
More than 30 years after the first wooden Grado creation, the fourth generation of that very model enters our test rooms. Say hello to the RS1x. And yes, folks, it’s very woody.
So woody, in fact, that the RS1x are the brand’s first ‘tri-wood’ pair, meaning, of course, that they are the first to use three different wood species – specifically, maple sleeve, hemp core and cocobolo. It’s an exotic combination you would more likely expect to see listed in a West Elm catalogue than on headphones.
Think what you like about wood in hi-fi – that it looks old-fashioned, that it has a distinctly warm sonic signature – its application here is aesthetically, let alone sonically, wonderful. The mix of dark- and light-coloured woods on the open-back earcups offers a contrast that is not only striking but that also brings a touch of the contemporary to the heritage Grado design.
That design is still defined by circular foam earpads, antennae-like adjustment sliders, a thin leather headband (which now has white-stitched edges), and a long cable (in this instance 1.7m and with a new grippy braided jacket). The cable is an ever-present reminder that these are headphones designed first and foremost to be used at home. Just like the 6.3mm jack adapter you will find in the box.
The build still wears that hand-made feel, too, which isn’t to say that it looks or feels cheap but that it doesn’t particularly look or feel machined. These headphones affirm Grado’s penchant for tactile, no-nonsense design and lightweight comfort. And within that brief, they don’t disappoint.
It’s only right that a fourth-generation model be given a fourth-generation driver. Gra
