Grado Labs SR60

Short-Term Use (5.00)

The SR60s are moderately comfortable headphones. The foam is a bit coarse, so it can feel itchy at times. Since the pads cover your ears so tightly, your ears might feel a bit toasty, but there is some air flow through the foam, so they won’t get a sweaty as they can with some over-ear headphones. The band isn’t padded much, so those who don’t have much hair might not have adequate cranial padding. In general, we also though these headphones exerted a bit too much pressure on our ears. Again, however, each of these negative attributes are very minor, and shouldn’t affect the wear experience too much.

Extended Use (4.00)

Over a period of six hours, the minor inconveniences become slightly more annoying. Our ears felt hotter, the pressure was a bit more noticeable, and the foam felt a bit more coarse. Although they were more comfortable than some headphones, they might not be a good pick if you are a user who indulges in extended listening sessions.

Cable Connectivity (7.98)

The SR60s give you about 6 feet, 9 inches between the plug’s cord guard and the ear cup. This is a pretty good length for most home theater setups, but it won’t stretch clear across the room to get you hooked up to your system.

These headphones also come with an 1/8-to-1/4-inch adapter, so they can be easily connected to both a portable music source and a HiFi system.

Customizability (2.00)

Just about the only option for customizing the headphones lies in cup positioning. These cups can rotate around in a full 360, and tilt about 50 degrees before the foam padding gets in the way. The cups can also slide away from the band, adding up to 1.24 inches of band length on each side. Other than that, the package doesn’t really come with any other options for customization, such as additional pads, or an optional headset control.

Portability (1.11)

Though these headphones are pretty light-weight, they simply aren’t portable. For one, they’re on-ear headphones. They have a very thin band and their cups can rotate around to lie flat, but they’ll still take up a lot of space. Further, there’s no case or anything else to manage the cord, which will just end up being cumbersome. The cord also makes these headphones unsuitable for mobile use.

Maintenance (4.00)

In terms of disassembly, the Grado SR60s have removable pads, and the cups themselves can be removed from the band with relative ease. Since the band — and its easily breakable plastic parts — is probably the best candidate for potential breakage, it’s nice to see it can be easily replaced.

In terms of cleaning, the SR60s don’t let you get near the sound elements. Actually, the open-backed cups have a plastic fence, which should do a good job keeping you away from the dust it lets in.

Other Features (5.00)

Battery

The Grado SR60 headphones don’t need batteries in order to function. Call us old-fashioned, but we think that’s worthy of some points.