"Five Stars" - Hi-fi Choice Magazine
"The Best Sounding Grado 'Phones Ever"
John Grado designed the new PS-1000 headphone like a first-class musical instrument. These flagship Professional Series headphones didn't have to just look good on paper, they had to impress John with an unparalleled level of musicality. And John succeeded. He considers the PS-1000 to be "the very best headphone we've ever produced." And that's saying a lot.
And John's not the only one who's saying it. "These are the best sounding Grado 'phones ever. They can do it all, often sensationally," marvels Max Dudious in Issue 47 of Positive Feedback Online. "Compared to a free standing system, a headphone system as excellent in tutti as the model PS-1000, is in today's dollars, a bargain."
"Detail to Die For"
In a Five Star review for the February 2010 issue of England's Hi-fi Choice magazine, Richard Black praises the PS-1000 as "tonally neutral to an extent most headphones only dream of, with detail to die for and effortless dynamics."
"Building Headphones Is An Art"
"Building headphones is an art, almost like building a musical instrument," John Grado told Audio Advisor. "Steinways built in New York sound different than Steinways built in Hamburg, using different wood curing and different hammers on the strings. Designing and building a high-quality pair of headphones is very analogous to designing and building a musical instrument, in terms of putting the materials together in a specific way. It's an art as much as it a science."
Grado's amazing GS-1000 set a brand new bang-for-the-buck benchmark for headphone design. Somehow John managed to top this feat with the amazing PS-1000.
"The Sound Jumps Off the Drivers"
The sound seems to literally jump off the drivers with an astounding attack without overemphasizing or exaggerating any part of the spectrum," reports Jason Morin in his review for Head-Fi.org.
Superficially, the PS-1000 resembles the GS-1000 and uses the same large ear cushions. "People love the big cushions on the GS1000," John Grado told us. "They are comfortable, and they also give the headphones a good soundstage. It's all part of what we have to do to the driver to make the overall presentation work."
Wood and Metal Driver Housing
The PS-1000's driver has been upgraded, but that's just the beginning. The PS-1000's body consists of a wood and metal hybrid, which, on the wood side, relies on the same hand-crafted mahogany that exhibits superior resonance control in the RS series.
But the external housing is made from a sophisticated lightweight metal alloy. This brings together the sonic benefits of Grado's metal series and wood series headphones in brilliantly synergistic design that transcends the best qualities of either series.
"What we want is mass, and the metal is the mass and the wood is like the damper," John Grado told Audio Advisor. "They work beautifully together."
And Grado's new eight-conductor cable contributes to the superior performance. | 
