Review: Grado Signature S750 Audiophile Headphones

As far as marketing goes, being able to announce (as Grado can) that your headphones are “hand-assembled in Brooklyn, USA” is not to be sniffed at.

In terms of the user’s experience of a pair of the new Grado Signature S750 hard-wired open-backed over-ear headphones, though, being hand assembled turns out to be something of a double-edged sword. Like the little girl in the Longfellow poem, when the Signature S750 are good they are very good indeed, but when they are bad they are horrid.

They sound amazing, but a few small issues with fit leave a bit to be desired, which isn't something you'd expect from $1,650 audiophile headphones. Still, if you're the right type of listener, these high-end headphones present music in as pristine a manner as a nice pair of stereo speakers in a good room.

Courtesy of Grado

Musically Magnificent

All that’s very good indeed about these new Grado headphones concerns the way they sound. The company has developed a new driver for this model, a 50-mm dynamic design that uses a paper and carbon fiber composite diaphragm in front of a lightweight copper-plated aluminum voice coil. It claims these drivers are good for a frequency response of 6 Hz to 46 kHz, which is a massive tonal range for any headphones.

The new “B” ear cushions Grado has designed for the Signature S750 have a noticeably flat surface. The company suggests the arrangement reduces physical and aural fatigue by distributing the clamping pressure more evenly. It also allows the diaphragm itself to be much closer to the listener’s ear than is usual, and it features a smaller-than-usual interior opening to finesse the sonic balance.

Photograph: Simon Lucas

In practice, it all works splendidly. No matter the sort of stuff you choose to listen to—for the purposes of this test I tried a bit of everything, from “Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten” by Arvo Pärt to “Honey Power” by My Bloody Valentine, via “The Universe Will Take Care of You” by James Holden and Waclaw Zimpel—the Signature S750 are seemingly impossible to rattle.

No matter the source of the stuff you’re listening to, they perform well. I plugged the headphones into a Naim amplifier being fed by both a Technics record player and a Cambridge network streamer, an expensive iFi headphone amplifier, and an only slightly more affordable FiiO digital audio player, and these headphones make the absolute best of all of it. If we’re judging purely on sound quality, the Grado Signature S750 are among the best pound-for-pound headphones you can currently buy.

A big part of what’s so straightforwardly enjoyable about them is the balance and poise they demonstrate. Tonally they’re utterly lifelike, uncolored, and convincing. Frequency response is similarly even-handed and naturalistic. The unwillingness to stick their oar into the tonal quality of a recording ensures the Signature S750 are a completely coherent listen, no matter if you’re listening to a single-instrument-with-voice, a full-scale symphony orchestra, or a processed electronic cut-and-paste collage. As long as a mix is made properly, you'll hear it exactly as intended.

The headphones sound notably open and spacious even by the standards of expensive open-backed headphones. The soundstage they create is big and airy, but also rigorously controlled and focused at the same time. Even with large ensemble pieces, the Grado make sure that every participant has the elbow room they need. Stage layouts are explicit, and the headphones give as much weight to the spaces and silences on the stage as they do the instruments.

Courtesy of Grado

Detail levels are high in every respect. Low-frequency sounds are deep and solid, sure, but they’re also loaded with information regarding texture and timbre, with ample variation at every stage. The top of the frequency range carries just as much fine detail, and also is substantial enough to prevent any hint of glassiness or hardness even if you’re listening at significant volume. And in between, the Signature S750 deliver the midrange in an eloquent and direct fashion. With singers, all the minutiae of character and attitude is made available just as readily as the details of tone and technique.

What else? Well, the Grado are spring-heeled where the dynamics of “quiet" and “loud” are concerned. When that symphony orchestra charges into the final crescendo, the distance between it and the quietest passages of the piece is enormous. There’s no sonic stress associated; the Signature S750 can power through the biggest dynamic upheavals without breaking sweat. And they’re equally talented when it comes to the more minor and subtle, but no less significant, dynamics of harmonic and tonal variation.

Nothing is too fleeting or too low-key to escape the attention of these headphones. There’s nothing prissy or analytical about them, though. They contextualize a huge amount of information not because it’s a party piece, but because they're simply that well designed.

Aesthetically Plain

Unfortunately, we’re not judging purely on sound quality, are we? When you pay $1,695 (or its equivalent) for a pair of your headphones, there are other criteria to be met. And the plain fact is that the Grado Signature S750 don’t look or feel like the money they cost.

Photograph: Simon Lucas

The aluminum housing that constitutes each ear cup is nicely machined and finished, and the liberal use of the metal keeps the weight down to a just-about-acceptable 460g. There’s very little articulation between the ear cups and the headband, though, and some overzealous clamping force means the Signature S750 are not especially comfortable, even for those of us with heads of unremarkable size.

The headband itself is very meagerly padded, which doesn’t help the comfort quotient in the slightest, and the ripples and undulations in its stitched leather covering would seem to indicate that the metal of the headband is not especially flat or smooth either.

Photograph: Simon Lucas

The friction-pole mechanism for headband adjustment is no less agricultural, for all its familiarity where Grado headphone designs are concerned. And while the detachable cable is a fair bit more flexible than some older Grado models, that’s not the same as saying it’s meaningfully flexible. If there’s a more willfully unhelpful length of cable in all of headphone-land, I’ve yet to encounter it.

On the subject of the cable: Grado provides 180-ish centimeters of it with a 6.3-mm termination at the end. When you’re charging this sort of money for headphones, it’s not outlandish to imagine your customer might have a device that accepts a balanced connection. Frankly, why there isn’t a choice of cables in the packaging is, frankly, beyond me. It’s something that the overwhelming majority of Grado’s rivals provide as a matter of course, and though the company’s website suggests there are forthcoming cable options “including a variety of lengths, as well as balanced terminations such as 4-pin XLR and 4.4mm,” these have been “forthcoming” for quite some time now, and will have a cost attached.

Photograph: Simon Lucas

I’m in no position to doubt the effectiveness of the “B” ear cushions where sound quality is concerned. After all, the Signature S750 sound superb, and Grado suggests the cushion design is a contributing factor. What I do feel qualified to say, though, is that the raw-feeling foam of the ear cushions is not especially comfortable, and that it retains and returns the wearer’s body heat with something approaching glee. “Premium” and “luxurious” are not words that apply.

Ultimately, it depends on what your priorities are. There’s certainly no arguing with the way the Signature S750 sound. They’re uncomplicatedly impressive and periodically quite thrilling to listen to, depending on the mix. But unless you’re one of those hair-shirt hi-fi fundamentalists from back in the day, one of those listeners who somehow doesn’t believe outstanding sound quality is valid unless there’s some suffering attached, there may well be too many shortcomings to overlook when it comes to these Grados. “Hand-assembled in Brooklyn, USA” notwithstanding.