Grado Labs iGrado

Summary

The iGrado headphones from Grado Labs have a serious case of the i’s. Presumably named in honor of Apple’s ubiquitous iPod, these headphones are meant for use with portable media devices. The cord is a bit less than four feet in length, which will reach your pants pocket, but not leave a ton of slack. The iGrados are also smaller than most on-ear sets, thanks mainly to their around the back of the head design. Unfortunately, the plastic band might be a bit uncomfortable. Since it can’t be adjusted, it will feel tight against all but the tiniest of heads.

Frequency Response (3.72)

This section goes through all the frequencies we can hear, and examines if the headphones can reproduce them accurately. If it played all frequencies at the same decibel level, the line in the graph below would be flat. We don’t expect headphones to have a completely flat frequency response, but we don’t want to see sharp spikes. Even if the headphones add a natural boost to some frequencies, the graph should come out as a rolling curve. When a frequency is emphasized differently from surrounding frequencies, it can sound unnatural. In the below graph, we measure each side of the headphones independently: left is green, right is red. The dotted black lines represent the limits that we look for the graph to fall between.

As you can see from this graph, the iGrado headphones start out on a fairly even keel; although the line looks a bit jagged, the spikes and troughs are small enough to be negligible. Towards the mid-tones, the graph angles downward fairly steeply, crossing the lower limit. Towards the end of the limit both channels peak above the line of acceptable response, after which the response rolls off rather quickly. This means that higher frequencies will be reproduced at a slightly lower level, so they may get lost in the mix. Many headphones have issues with frequency response, such as the Bose QuietComfort 3 headphones (also on-ear).

Distortion (4.44)

Distortion is any difference between the original signal and what the headphones produce, which can be caused by parts of the headphones not vibrating correctly, or other parts of the headphone vibrating when they shouldn’t . On the graph below, a peak indicates a point in the frequency spectrum where the headphones don’t produce the sound they should. This means the actual shape of the soundwave has been changed in some way, most likely due to the driver producing the sound.

The iGrado headphones actually had very minimal distortion up until the higher end. As you’ve no doubt noticed, however, there was a major spike in this area. It was worse in the right channel than the left, but either way, the percentage distortion should never spike like this. Typically we see a flat line that hovers varying degrees above the zero line. In this case, it probably means something within the headphones was vibrating at this frequency. Whatever the reason, it isn’t good. Overall, however, the iGrado headphones did reasonably on this test; apart from this peak, the distortion on other parts of the frequency spectrum was minimal.

Tracking (6.76)

Headphones have two channels; the left and right side. What we look for is the headphones to produce the same sound level on each side, but it’s very rare to see. As such, we have this test: it plays the same sound over both channels, and measure the volume of each channel. If the line goes above zero, the left side is louder; below and right is louder.

The iGrado headphones actually did well for the first part of the stretch; you shouldn’t notice any difference for lower or mid-range frequencies. Towards the higher end, however, emphasis will erratically shift between left and right, which will cause instruments to sound unnatural, or as if they’re jumping around. We typically see the tracking jump around a lot at higher frequencies, so the messy high end of the line isn’t a big problem. Basically, the iGrados had good tracking; most users won’t notice the slight differences between the two channels.

Maximum Usable Volume (9.05)

For our distortion score above, we use a typical listening volume, 78 dBSPL. We included this test since some people out there like to nearly deafen themselves. What we do is gradually increase the volume until the distortion reaches 3%, which is something anyone would notice.

The Grado iGrado headphones were able to reach 116 decibels before the distortion crept past the 3% mark. Considering it almost reached 3% during the earlier, less volume-intensive distortion test, we were actually quite impressed with this performance. Keep in mind, playing anything much louder than this could cause permanent hearing damage.

Isolation (0.33)

For this test we measure how well the headphones block out external noises. Since the iGrado headphones don’t have any sort of active cancellation, what we’re essentially measuring is how well they can physically obstruct your ear canals so sound waves can’t squeeze in. The graph below shows how much sound they blocked across the audio spectrum; the higher the line, the more sound was blocked.

With its open backs, the iGrados didn’t fare well. Towards the higher-end, there was a small amount of sound blocked. Unfortunately, everything else will find its way into your ears; at other frequencies they blocked little or nothing.

Leakage (3.48)

Leakage refers to how well your headphones keep your music to yourself. Again, open-backed headphones, like the iGrados, really don’t have much in their design to prevent leakage. Even so, the iGrado headphones did better than other open-backed cans, such as the Grado SR60s and the Sennheiser HD 555s; only a moderate amount of sound escaped. If you’re sitting next to someone on the bus wearing these, you won’t hear much.