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Author Topic: The Bestest "Grado" Evar? Introducing the "Joe Magnum"  (Read 4271 times)

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Marvey

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The Bestest "Grado" Evar? Introducing the "Joe Magnum"
« on: December 20, 2013, 10:10:27 PM »
The Bestest "Grado" Evar? Introducing the "Joe Magnum", a Grado You Probably Can't Get

This headphone indirectly originated from stratocaster's StratoMagnum project. It was basically an offshoot from the stratokosster and stratoGrado projects where custom cups and pads with a little elbow grease resulted in some pretty darn good sounding headphones, at least in terms of tonal response.

However, with the StratoMagnum, stratocaster had never quite achieved a decent FR. I tried some tweaks that he suggested, but all of them were to no avail. We just couldn't get the Magnum v4 driver to sound quite right despite whatever tweaks we tried. The verdict was "let the Magnum be a Grado"

StratoMagnum measurements




I shipped the StratoMagnum's back to Austria, where for some unknown reason, the Austrian postal service didn't inform Stratocaster of the package's arrival. The box ended up getting sitting at the postal facility for a week or two before being returned back to me in the USA. Stratocaster insisted that I just keep them because the costs of shipping were so high.

These ended up sitting in a box for more than half a year. I intended on putting them in some wood cups, possibly from Martin, but I never got to that.

Recently, one of the drivers on my HP1000 went out (old / failed solder), and I figured this was a good opportunity to re-cable the headphones. This particular pair used to be owned by several other HF'ers and unfortunately had been re-cabled with silver cable: the non-flexible variety. It's not necessarily that I don't like the sound of silver, but I fricking hate cables which are not flexible. Twisted silver cables which have a tendency of untwisting themselves and thus rotating the cups of the HP1000 are extremely maddening. I'm not going to say much more; otherwise I'm just going to get even more mad and start naming names and calling people retards.

Well, I looked over at the still un-opened box (returned from Austria) containing the StratoMagnums...
« Last Edit: December 21, 2013, 08:39:22 AM by CEE TEE »
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Marvey

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Re: The Bestest "Grado" Evar? Introducing the "Joe Magnum"
« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2013, 10:10:37 PM »
So now I'm thinking... oh great. I had never liked any of the Magnums based headphones I had heard. While I appreciated the refinement of the Magnum over the RS1 driver (they measure very similarly except the Magnum is smoother in the treble and the ringing is much less short lived), and the beauty of some of these custom cups, the overall sound never quite seemed "together" like the John Grado RS-1s (despite whatever screwy presentation the RS-1s had, it was always obvious to me that John had a certain intentional "vision" to their sound.)

I even experimented with various cushions, quarter mod, reverse quarter mod, TTVJ flat pads, standard bowls, taped bowls, etc. None of it mattered. I just couldn't get the sound that I wanted, particularly with the bass levels, with any of these Magnum variants. I did wonder though if this was because of the non-standard cup designs which significantly deviated from the stock John Grados.

Magnum variant measurements




Well, I figured it would give the Magnums a shot since I had everything opened up. I ditched the silver POS cables and soldered some highly flexible microphone cables to the Magnum drivers and placed those drivers in the metal cups of the HP1000. I also placed the TTVJ flat pads over the cups.

I figured this would sound "interesting, bracing myself with the 2k, 5k, and 9k peaks...
« Last Edit: December 20, 2013, 10:27:27 PM by purrin »
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Marvey

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Re: The Bestest "Grado" Evar? Introducing the "Joe Magnum"
« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2013, 10:14:54 PM »
So I plug these "Joe Magnum" Grados into the Vali and Zana Deux fearing for the worst...

Hmm, this actually sounds pretty good. Neutralish almost. Oh wait, there's a little Grado honk. Strange, it's seems very minor. (My guess is a sharp fairly low amplitude peak at 2kHz.) OK, let me put on bright recording and have my ears sheared off at 8-9kHz. Hmm. Strange. The treble is mellow. In fact, it's really really smooth. What's going on here? OK OK. There's got to be a huge ski slope starting at 4k and peaking at 5k. This characteristic is present in all Magnum variants and the RS-1. Hmm, it seems right on. I know peaks at 4-5k don't bother me - I actually like it because it brings about some bite and edge - but nada. I don't think it's emphasized.

An overall listen with several different recordings of varying quality: the Joe Magnum is slightly warm, has a smooth treble, lush mids, and has a little of that John Grado pizzazz in the upper mids. But it's just touch. Guitars are crunchy, cymbals are articulate, vocals are lush; and it's got that lively Grado transient response which Grado fans adore. I'm now thinking "Questhate and CEETEE would really love this headphone. These Joe Magnums bridge that territory between the HP1000 and RS-1." John Grado without it's ear piercing qualities. Joe Grado without its bassy / darkish maybe sometimes too flat presentation.

So here we go with the measurements:




(May need to redo the R channel, I think a dump truck drove by in the distance. Damn, Jude was right. I need to get myself one of those Sennheiser techtonic plate isolation platforms. Maybe I could have made tweaked these to sound more like the HD700, i.e. like shit.)

NOTES:
  • There are some tweaks inside the cups. It wasn't just a direct transplant.
  • Distortion past 1kHz is very low. I would even bet that even the most STAX aficionados like n3rdling would be find the upper mid and treble performance of these respectable.
  • Very capable of plankton extraction, particularly in the mids and treble. Like almost just as good as the HD800, at least in just this region. Like 2nd place to HD800, better than Abyss, LCD-3, etc.
  • Bass not so good. On par with any other Grado. Really can't get ultra clean or ultra low distortion with such a small driver.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2013, 11:01:37 PM by purrin »
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Marvey

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Re: The Bestest "Grado" Evar? Introducing the "Joe Magnum"
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2013, 10:46:10 PM »
HF2 measurements for reference
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Marvey

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Re: The Bestest "Grado" Evar? Introducing the "Joe Magnum"
« Reply #4 on: December 20, 2013, 11:01:54 PM »
Compare CSDs with HF2
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timjthomas

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Re: The Bestest "Grado" Evar? Introducing the "Joe Magnum"
« Reply #5 on: December 20, 2013, 11:28:18 PM »
Now this is just plain cruel!!!
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MuppetFace

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Re: The Bestest "Grado" Evar? Introducing the "Joe Magnum"
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2013, 01:06:24 AM »
Wow, I'd love to give these a listen sometime.

TBH I'm surprised putting the Magnum drivers in the HP1000 cups made that much of a difference, though I'm guessing the internal mods in the cups also had a lot to do with it. Just thinking back to dBel's mod of Tari's HP1000 (w/ Joe's drivers), apparently tweaking things inside the cups made them sound incredible. I'm wondering how these would compare to the dBel modded HP1000.

If anything, this makes me a bit less worried about enjoying my stock HP1000s. I just need to horde some Magnum drivers, so if something happens to the Joe drivers down the line it wouldn't be a total loss.
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My blog on head-fi: http://www.head-fi.org/f/7879/muppetface
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Marvey

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Re: The Bestest "Grado" Evar? Introducing the "Joe Magnum"
« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2013, 04:04:12 AM »
Quote from: timjthomas on December 20, 2013, 11:28:18 PM
Now this is just plain cruel!!!

I don't know how much interest there would be, and it would be contingent on Rhydon making the gray Magnum v4 drivers. Does anyone know if Rhydon is still making them?

Was thinking about speccing a wood version of the HP1000 cups, maybe with Martin. Same dimensions. The other possibility would be to have some aluminum machined to the same spec, but using the standard Grado gimbal assemblies.
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Stapsy

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Re: The Bestest "Grado" Evar? Introducing the "Joe Magnum"
« Reply #8 on: December 21, 2013, 04:33:00 AM »
Hell yeah lets get some Changstar super Grado HP1000 magnum v4 jamesons's limited edition headphones made!
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stratocaster

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Re: The Bestest "Grado" Evar? Introducing the "Joe Magnum"
« Reply #9 on: December 21, 2013, 06:08:07 AM »
Marv, I am happy that you could make good use of these. Trying to close the drivers in and create a kind of closed Magnum certainly was a failure, since it was ruining the performance of an otherwise very capable driver.
In fact, there were (at least) three iterations of the V4 drivers that I experimented with in different (open) setups. The very first version had a black mesh in a light-grey plastic body. These were simply too forgiving in the highs, losing out on detail. I guess they were the result of too eager an attempt to change the Grado sound and tune down the highs. But I think Rhydon just went a little too far and the highs were 'lost'. The next batch was the all-grey drivers, the ones you got now, and these were the absolute best. Very resolving yet balanced and the highs were 'back', very nice highs indeed. The only thing that bothered me was the 'forwardness' resulting from the peak around 2k, that many Grado enthusiasts love but that I have come to really  dislike and avoid.
Finally Rhydon started selling the all-black V4s, and these - at least to me - were a step in the wrong direction again, the highs had become too emphasised again.
I did not experiment with the V5/TubulentX  drivers that Turbulent Labs are selling right now, because I was done with GradoMagnum modding after the all-black V4s. I do not know in what way  Rhydon is involved in these drivers, but people do not seem to be too enthusiastic.
By the way, I am still using a final pair of grey V4s in a hybrid setup, i.e. aluminum inner shell originally sold by Symphones and a very thin wooden outer shell for aesthetic and weight reasons.  Plus, I have the inner walls of the aluminum shells lined with foam.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2013, 06:24:28 AM by stratocaster »
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