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Grado SR60 Headphones Review - Performance

By Mark Brezinski
Published on April 28, 2008
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Intro	Tour & Design
Performance	In Use
Value & Comparisons	Conclusion
Ratings & Specs

Summary
Judging from our test results, the Grado SR60 headphones provide good, not great audio quality. They had above average scores in tracking and maximum usable volume, and middling scores in frequency response and distortion. As open-backed phones, they obviously didn't provide much isolation; outside noises will get to your ears relatively unimpeded, and anyone in the room will be able to hear what you're listening to. Keeping all this in mind, if the SR60s had better padding, their performance scores could've been better. The foam padding simply does not form a seal with the ear.

We perform our testing using SoundCheck, a professional audio analysis program by Listen, inc. We also use a head and torso simulator (HATS), which provides us with a simulated head and ear. HATS is our site's "Golden Ear," which is great because, as a finely-calibrated machine, it functions just like a human ear, but is far more accurate and doesn't get tired of listening to the noises we use in our testing. Our rig lets HATS and SoundCheck sing each other robot songs, then measure how those sounds are affected when filtered through the headphones. It's all very scientific and awesome; if you'd like to find out more, read this.

Frequency Response (5.37)
This test sends a frequency sweep through the headphones at a typical listening level of about 78dB, and the sound that the headphones produce is captured by HATS. The SR60s' reproduction of this sweep is graphed below. The frequencies are graphed along the bottom (rom low frequency at the left to high at the right), the decibel level -- or loudness -- runs down the left side. The green line represents the left channel, while the right channel is represented by red. The dotted lines are the limits both of these lines should fall between; anything to the left and right of these limits is not scored, but we leave them in to show the trend of the line.

As you can see, the SR60s do very well with lower level sounds; the curve is smooth. Towards the higher end it dips sharply, after which point it's a bit erratic. This big dip means that sounds in that range will sound a bit underemphasized compared to surrounding frequencies, which might sound a bit unnatural. But this isn't a huge issue; even with this dip and the ensuing erratic behavior, the most it strays outside of the limits in the section we use for scoring is 5 decibels in the left ear cup. Again, while this isn't perfect, it isn't a serious problem, and the overall frequency response of the SR60s is pretty good.

Distortion (5.59)
Distortion refers to any difference between the sound that's present in the source, and what the headphones produce. Our system examines distortion by playing a sequence of tightly defined sounds at around 90dB; a loud, but common listening level. It then analyzes the difference between the original waveform and what is piped through the headphones, into HATS's ears. The graph below shows this difference, which is called Total Harmonic Distortion (THD), calculated as a percentage. Again, your X-axis will be playing the role of frequencies, from low to high; the Y-axis represents the distortion as a percentage of the total waveform.

The SR60s have a bit of a problem with distortion, with bass sounds having some distortion. This isn't uncommon for headphones of this type, but it goes a little higher than we usually like to see. They also feature a spike to about 2% distortion at around 7Khz, which -- if you'll notice -- is about where that dip is on the frequency response chart. Other than these two areas, however, the SR60s perform rather well, keeping distortion to a minimum in other frequencies.

Tracking (7.14)
Since the SR60s have two ear cups, they also have two different channels: left and right. In this test, we measure the difference, in decibels, between those two channels. Any spikes or dives mean that one side of your headphones is outputting a higher decibel level than the other. Zero is the middle point, where both headphones are outputting identical loudness levels. If the line moves above zero, the left channel is stronger; below means the right cup will sound louder.

As you might be able to discern from the graph, the SR60s start off a bit heavy on the left side, even out, then get into a horrible car accident towards the higher frequencies. Typically, anything higher than 7 kHz will go unnoticed, so the worst of that high-end scribble can be disregarded. Overall, the SR60s perform well over most of the spectrum; the difference between the two sides is only a few percent that most users won't notice.

Sound Pressure Level (7.84)
For our distortion test, we put the headphones at 90 decibels, which is a normal listening level. For this test, we crank up the volume until the distortion levels go above 3%. The SR60s got up to 110.92 dBSPL (sound pressure level) before they reached that kind of distortion. This is 10 dBSPL less than many other headphones we've tested, but it is enough that you should be able to crank up the volume pretty high on the SR60s without the sound turning into a distorted mess.

Isolation (0.07)
Isolation refers to the headphones' ability to seal you off form the outside world. The SR60s are not the headphones to use if you want to enjoy your music in a noisy room; they do pretty much nothing to block external sound. They don't have active noise cancellation, so the single green line in the graph below indicates how much the headphones reduce external noise by physically obstructing your ear canal; the higher the line, the more sound is blocked. Again, the bottom line represents frequencies, the left hand side represents how much sound is blocked.

The SR60s are open-backed headphones, which means just about anything on the outside can make its way into your ears. That being said, even other open-backed headphones manage to block out more sound than the SR60s (such as the Sennheiser HD 555s). Towards the higher end of the spectrum, it does block out some noise, but chances are just about every external sound will reach your ears along with your music.

Leakage (2.74)
Again, the SR60s' open-backed design is an issue here; while this form factor might give you an airy sound quality, it'll also broadcast all of your music to everyone around you. If want to keep your preference for J-Pop to yourself, the Grado SR60s will prove themselves to be a poor confidant.

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