Solo & Grado GS1000i

I was never really a big fan on headphone listening having always found it a bit fatiguing.  Along the way though, I had picked up a pair of Beyer DT 831’s and an early Musical Fidelity x-cans headphone amplifier, both of which seemed pretty good to me.  However, over the last year or so I got to hear the Solo and Sennheiser HD650’s combo and was impressed at how much better than my setup this sounded.   So when it came to exchanging gifts for our 25^th wedding anniversary last summer, I naturally asked my wife for a pair of Grado GS1000i’s.  OK so why the Grado’s and not the Sennheisers?  Well who wouldn’t want to look like an antique Cyberman?  Actually, being peripheral to the business, I got a good deal on Grado’s.  By the way, the missus and I don’t usually exchange lavish gifts on our anniversary; in fact we had gone those 25 years with not so much as a card or a flower going either way, so we decided to ‘push the boat out’ a bit.

Having never heard them prior to getting them (yes I do know that’s daft), I was pretty pleased with Grado’s.  After only a few hours they gave a very stable, detailed and spacey sound which improved further for being left running for a day or two.  They do have some odd characteristics though (apart from making you look like a second world war radio operator); for a start you have to learn where they sound best: on your head is a good start, but slight moments in any direction have a noticeable effect on the HF balance.  Also, moving them back or forward a little alters where sounds appear to come from.  By pushing them towards the back of your head slightly, it becomes very easy to imagine that the sounds are actually in front of you, rather than around you/in your head.  Anyway, I spent many happy late summer evenings sat in the garden with them plugged into a DAB radio, sipping cold beer, enjoying the surprising amount of space they created in/around my head, especially on classical music, which I’m not normally a big listener of.  A portable DAB radio is not the best source but I enjoy radio in the garden and the fact was that listening to the hifi through the x-cans, wasn’t really the revelation I had hoped for.  So end of November last year, I decided it was time to give the Solo a go to see if it gave the hifi listening a boost.

I (mostly) resisted listening during the first few days, instead I gave the Solo a couple of weeks warming up time and then did a proper back to back comparison with the x-cans (unusually for me a clear cut situation!).  The difference in the space around instruments, increase in low level detail/texture and sweeter mids and highs, meant the Solo was a clear winner.  In fairness to the x-cans amp, it has a richer if less distinct bass, which can make some tracks easier on the ear.  After another week though, the Solo was telling me much more about what was going on in the music and for me that is always the way forward and so it joined my Reflex as a permanent part of my system.

You would be forgiven for thinking that that would be that, a happy ending.  Lovely sound and a reason to reassess loads of my favourite records and CD’s, hearing bits and bobs that I had never heard before.  Well it was pretty much, except that sometime around the third week in December, I put the headphones down and for no particular reason, didn’t pick them up again until just over a week ago.  When I did get around to sticking the plug back into the Solo, I was surprised to find that the Bell and Sebastian CD I had chosen, had now been issued with an additional layer of what might be termed atmosphere.  On some tracks this was so noticeable as to be a bit like putting your head into a different sized space.  This improvement is apparent on most recordings but is most obvious on acoustic material, where it gives me the impression of being able to place individual instruments nearer or further away.  since the headphones had been idle, this change could only be due to the Solo having an extended warm up. 

Now don't get me wrong, a couple of hours, a day, even a couple or three weeks as I found out with my Reflex; is just about do-able as a burn-in - but two months!  OK I admit that much of the improvement may have occurred before the end of my listening holiday but it’s still a long time.

In summary then, considering how markedly it now betters the x-cans, the Solo is clearly a cracking headphone amplifier - but you haven’t got to be in a hurry!   Anyone considering getting one should bear this in mind, i.e. plug it in now for  listening in AprilJ.