The Grado RA-1 Reference Headphone Amp: Dudely Product of the Year?
His Dudeliness, Charles Hollander

Just to let you know I’m not a shill for Grado Labs, I’ll start out by saying this li’l ‘phones amp is not for everydude. It is not the ultimate headphone amp. It is a startlingly well designed and dedicated piece, more or less exactly suited to Grado headphones, like surfboards have to be matched to your height and weight. So, if you’re a dude who likes Sennheiser, Stax, Sony, AKG, Beyer, or Koss headphones — cool! Or if you won’t let headphones touch your ears unless the music has been liquefied through pricey tubed headphone amplifiers like Sennheiser, Cary, Melos, (or Pooged Dynakits dedicated to headphone use) — most excellent! The Grado Reference Headphone Amplifier is not for you. It will not give you the most radical, far-out, stylin’, jammin’, gnarly, way-cool, li’l ole ‘phones amp in the world.

On the other hand, if you do a lot of traveling, commuting in trains or planes, logging lottsa drive time, or hacking long hours in front of a computer; this portable (battery powered) RA-1 gem might give you the ride-the-curl rush, might get you reelin’ with the feelin’, might be your baby, your little surfer girl. And if you already dig on Grado cans, then a most-sublime synergy can be yours, without too hard a hit on the old checking account.

For a generation or so, Grado phono cartridges have been known for their gorgeous midrange, authoritative bass, and silky highs. Some audio reviewers have registered dissatisfaction with the Grado headphones, wanting more detail. The RA-1 amplifier obviates those dissatisfactions. The RA-1 reminds me of an old ‘40s saying: "Accentuate the positive! Eliminate the negative!" Whoever said that? Don’t mess with "Mister In-between?" It reminds me of that old jive, ‘cuz with Grado ‘phones, that’s what it does. You get the usual hit when you listen to Grados: warm, smooth, sweet string tone; full-bodied, luscious, resonant bass; non-fatiguing, rich, bel canto midrange. At the same time, Grado cans seem to want more kick-ass transient punch than is available from the usual portable CD player. What can you expect from two little AA size, volt-and-a-half, batteries?

Lottsa Zotz is now available from the RA-1, which, with its two nine-volt batteries, brings out the transients and inner details of complex recordings. The difference between listening straight out of a portable and through the cute little RA-1 is like the difference between being in the middle of your Symphony Hall and sitting front row center. I define Zotz as "startle-ability" at high levels, and as "resolving power" at low levels. Thinking of batteries as analogous to rail capacitors, you’d be multiplying your storage six fold by using the Grado amp with a Discman, say. If you regularly read my screed these last few issues, you should know by now that His Dudeliness, and any righteous audio head dude, is anti-tizz, anti-boom, but pro-zotz. New PosFeed tee shirt? To wear with cut-offs, guaraches, and your bushy-bushy blond hairdo? Note perpendicular smiley faces!

 

(-:} R U 4 LOTTSA ZOTZ? {:-)

POSITIVE FEEDBACK

Can you imagine His Dudeliness at 2:AM, coming off a writing session, a little stimulated, and definitely wide awake, Rappin’ with the Curl Dude, or groovin’ with the killer recording of Shostakovich’s witty Symphony No. 15 (he nearly quotes the William Tell Overture and, later, Siegfried’s funeral music), with the Cleveland under Kurt Sanderling (Erato)? Or diggin’ on the same Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s mighty Symphony No. 8, with Leningrad Phil under the baton of Evgeny Mravinsky (BBC)? Or rockin’ with Danny Gatton’s "Elmira Street Boogie," on his 88 Elmira Street (Elektra) CD?1 Or cloggin’ with Doc Watson and David Grisman’s Doc & Dawg (Acoustic Disc)? Well, imagine it! It happens more often than I’d like to admit. But if I must suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous insomnia, it might as well be on my terms. Right? That’s why I have all these old amps ‘n preamps, ‘phones ‘n stuff cluttering up my little beach shack.

I have shelves full of various generation headphones hangin’ ‘round my den. Sounds like a delta blues; "Woke up this mornin’/Had seven earphones on my mind." They were: Koss Pro 40s (from the ‘60s), Grado SR 60s (from the ‘90s), [Hey, Dude, how come the 40s are from the ‘60s, and the 60s are from the ‘90s? Just keeping us on our collective toes.] Grado SR-1s (1999 review sample), Sony MDR-V6s (in production since 1985), cheapo Sharps, Sony "Earbuds," even an inefficient old pair of Yamaha Orthodynamic YH-2s (1975?) that were thought to be way-cool in way-back time. My headphone collection is a testimony to years of insomnia, and the need to listen to music at something approaching lifelike volume levels without waking the whole household. Some are open-back, some are closed-back; some fit around your ear (circumaural), some in your ear (interaural); some are comfortable :-) , others uncomfortable :-( . I guess that’s how the saying got started: "In your ear, Mack!" All my various headphones sound better to me through the Grado RA-1 amplifier.

That’s no guarantee the Grado RA-1 will sound ethereal with the grotty old bargain cans you bought at the all-night electronics store you see on The Dave Show. That just says the Grado is more of an amplifier than the 5532 dual op amp chip, and the small value surface mount capacitors that act as its "power supply," in the headphone amplifier section of most older gear. Rapping with John Curl, he says the chip of choice for most headphone circuits is now the Burr-Brown 2604, dual op-amp, properly set up and compensated. Short of the best Burr-Brown, #627, which costs five times as much and is usually reserved for all-out attempts, the 2604 is damn good. Except — aye here’s the rub — it can get into thermal feedback with asymmetrical signals (music, as opposed to computer tones) when driven hard, and crap out. I’ve listened to a Sony Walkman, an Optimus 3400, the CD section of my computer, an early generation Magnavox CD player, and a Sony ES CD player. At near lifelike levels, the "Headphone Out" circuits all sound better through the Grado RA-1: they sound crisper, cleaner, and exhibit better bass control; they are better at capturing spatial and ambient information; they sound relaxed through crescendi.

This is especially true when playing as LOUDly as you choose. That’s when the little built-in headphone circuits usually crap out. It’s another no-brainer. Don’t push the little circuits (even Burr-Brown) out of their most linear range. Add another gain block! The Grado RA-1 is way-cooler than the usual itty-bitty headphone circuit. Anything would be. Grado Labs’ policy is not to divulge proprietary information, such as what is the heart of the Grado RA-1 amp. Discrete parts? Chips? The circuitry is potted. It’s clear the Grado amp is good. I asked myself, "How good?"

To get a sense of where the Grado stands in the ultimate scheme of "The Quest," I’ve even listened to the Grado RA-1 through my big rig, in place of my hallowed Levinson JC-2. The li’l darlin’ will surprise you: in many regards it sounds very similar to the JC-2 (even the female RCA jacks look suspiciously alike). I think that’s the highest compliment I can give it. The RA-1 is nearly the sonic equal of my pooged JC-2, right out of the box. The differences are subtle and a matter of taste, since I "voiced" the JC-2 a tad. F’rinstance, the JC-2 has a wider soundstage, but the RA-1 has somewhat crisper mid-trebs, a trade-off I chose. The RA-1 has Dudeworthy bass (deep, strong, detailed) that I attributed to the ‘phones ‘til I played the amp in my big rig. Still, to my surprise, the RA-1 and my JC-2 have a very similar timbral balance (Lows to Mids to Highs); they have similar imaging qualities, with realistic presentation of a facsimile of the recording venue, without shrinking it down or enlarging it up; and they have zotz — they can stun the listener. They are soprano-friendly; they make voices sound lifelike without any electro-mechanical metallic quality. They both make music beautiful. They make neither tizzy highs nor woolly bass. They stay clean no matter how loudly you play them. They are both "warm" in the cello range yet accurate, without rolling off treble detail. They have an abundance of midrange detail. These are my subjective impressions from my notes.

I like the RA-1. It is on the sonic side of the street that I’m used to, and that I prefer. So grab your trench, and don’t forget your lid, and just direct your feet to the sonic side of the street. If you like brilliantly etched highs, or the analytic capability of electrostatics, you might not quite fall in love with the RA-1 amp. You might prefer the liquidity of tubes. But tubed amps are relatively large and heavy, so you sacrifice mobility. If you want to use RA-1 as a reference monitor, a tool in the recording studio, or on-location, you could. Cool. No problem. Or, as they say in the Kremlin, "Nyet problemska." That is to say, the RA-1 is an excellent little honey of an amp; small, accurate, linear, dynamic, clean, with lots of gain, and a good impedance match for most headphones. It has a minimalist approach to the circuitry: no balance or tone controls, no crossfeed pattern, no filters, no selector switches, each of which can potentially reduce clarity. When I played it through my big rig it did not seem to have much of a personality of its own.

What the Grado Li’l Darlin’ has going for it is, small size hence portability, battery-powered supply, and great performance at a reasonable price ($350). It consumes two nine-volt batteries every forty or fifty hours (depending on how loudly you play it), so it doesn’t need an A.C. line. Matter of fact, it has no provision for an A.C. adaptor. Batteries only! Having no onboard power supply renders it dead quiet and hum-free. Battery powered also means you can listen to it poolside, or at the beach, or on long trips. You need only have a spare pair of batteries and you’re good for a week of day and night listening. If you do on-location recordings, of virtually anything from church choirs to your children’s school shows, this little amp will do just fine riding the "monitor" section of your tape deck. Its size is appealing, too. It has the same paw-print as my Sony Discman D-141, and it’s about as thick as four or five CDs stacked atop each other. So, it packs a lot of performance in a small package; five inches wide, five and a half inches deep, by one and a half inches high. Incidently, it weighs only three quarters of a pound, so you can toss it in a ditty bag with all your other ditties and related stuff; CDs, CD player, ‘phones, adaptor plugs, batteries, cables ‘n shit. [Was it George Carlin who said? "My junk is important stuff: your junk is shit. Like, you know, man, don’t get your shit mixed up with my stuff!" Hey, if Carlin and Howard Stern can invoke the First Amendment, so can I, His Dudeliness! Right? Damn straight!]

The Grado RA-1 is also a nifty piece of industrial design. The parts are inside a block of milled mahogany that is partitioned into sections, each of which is treated with a proprietary metalized substance for RF shielding. The audio-quality wiring harnesses are routed through pathways that are routed into the wood. The proprietary active circuitry and caps are potted in a sealed chamber; so the parts can’t vibrate and they won’t break if you drop the little box (Hey, be careful!). The front "panel" has a red on/off L.E.D. indicator, an input socket for a 1/4 inch plug, and a volume control that looks like an old Marantz knob and feels so much like an Alps pot I’d bet on it (and I’m not much of a gambler). The rear panel has one pair of color-coded (red right returning) female RCA jacks for input, and a small toggle switch, for on/off. That’s pretty minimal. The bottom has four slide-resistant rubber feet mounted on a metal, baked enamel coated, shielding panel. A removable plate comes off the panel to reveal the section holding the batteries. Two finger-tightened bolts hold the plate in place. No instructions came with the review sample, but there is only one way you can get the batteries to fit in; side by side, not stacked. The rest is self-explanatory.

If you want a battery powered single source preamp, a go anywhere, do anything amp — for whatever purpose — the RA-1 will do as well as any I’ve heard.

I can’t say it’s as good as this one or that one because I haven’t yet done an A/B comparison against the entire field. I can say that in conjunction with the Grado RS-1 headphones the RA-1 sounds crystal clear: clean, clean, clean. Through it I can discern the lyrics to some of the most complexly engineered discs I own; like Rickie Lee Jones’s "Jolie Jolie," on her Traffic From Paradise (Geffen). Rickie routinely slurs her pronunciation as a matter of style, but now I can differentiate her plosive, fricative, dental, labial, guttural, aspirant, and sibilant sounds (the seven dwarfs of enunciation). The RA-1 has textured yet authoritative "NOW HEAR THIS" bass; its midrange has an upfront presence, yet retains the bel canto quality; its highs are detailed and airy without any trace of tizz. Compared with the sound from any of my other sources, with the RA-1 in the circuit, the bass tightens up yet has more sock; the transients have more bite at the moment of attack; the highs have more air and clarity. My favorite Diana Krall album of Nat King Cole covers, All For You (Impulse!), is very well engineered. Listening to her "I’m Trough With Love," I’d say the Grado RA-1 amp with the RS-1 ‘phones, gets closer to microphone feed kind of sound (highly detailed, with that sense of live music) than any other combination I’ve tried. There is a vividness to the sound presentation that I’ve heard only (alas!) through a damn few set of speakers, including Murray the Zee’s latest effort. [Wait’ll you get a load of that, Dudes. Talk about your in-the-room illusion!]

Many headphones promise a kind of Dudely sound, but fail to deliver. The Sennheiser Orpheus electrostatics, with dedicated tube amp, deliver for $14,900, list price. The Stax Lambda Nova electrostatics, with dedicated amp, deliver at $2,860 with all possible options. Some say the Sennheiser 600 headphones ($450, manufacturer’s list price) with the HeadRoom Cosmic portable amplifier ($600) and HeadRoom Base Station One power supply ($300) setup is the bee’s knees for home listening or on-location monitoring. I haven’t A/B compared that setup to the Grado RA-1amp ($350)/RS-1 headphone ($700) combination yet, but (from what I can remember) the difference between the two is more a difference in taste than one of absolute performance parameters. Do you like to sit up close, or farther back in the hall? Do you like your soloist to sound front and center, or more laid back and blended in with the accompanying instruments? Do you like song lyrics to be prominent? That sort of thing.

The Grado setup delivers very near state-of-the-art headphone sound at what seems to be budget prices, compared to the most expensive. Hell, even with the bottom-of-the-line Grado SR 60 ($70) headphones, the sound is still pretty damn good. The most obvious sonic differences between the SR 60s and the RS-1s are; the RS-1s have notably tighter bass, more detail, and airier highs, in addition to gorgeous fit ‘n finish and more comfort. The sound of the RA-1 amplifier is neutral. Together with the RA-1, and any Grado headphones, you’d be in for something of a revelation, but with the RS-1s you hear Grado’s best shot and it is quite impressive: balanced, dynamic, presenting an accurate sonic image. "Blown away!" is the most frequent comment.

So, if we are going to grade the Grado RA-1, we’d have to give it points for cool looks, portability, great sound, noise-free power-supply design, bullet-proof industrial design (schemes for shielding, potting the circuitry, routing the wiring), minimalist front end design for the most-direct signal path, and a most-excellent price/performance ratio. This is such a nice job of product engineering, by John Grado and John Chaipis, I think it earns a nomination for "Dudely Product Of The Year."

If you are a Dude, an audio knight pledged to the pursuit of the highest and purest sound, the closest approximation of the real thing, the Grail; and if you have a pair of Grado headphones of the current series, do yourself a favor. Take them down to Ye Olde Grado dealer, with a couple of your fave CDs, and hear for yourself. I’m certain you’ll come away smiling. Most folks for whom I’ve played the RA-1/RS-1s get "the grin that must not be named" on their faces, and say; "This is one bitchin’ li’l amp." Or, "This beats my big system, and I’ve lots of money in that." Jazz musician friends who spend time in recording studios, members of the Baltimore Symphony, bluegrass pickers, bluesmen: they’ve all said, "Wow!"

If you’re an insomniac (there are lots of us out there), a frequent flyer, an over the road hauler, a commuter, or a guy like me who leads a sedentary life before a computer (when I’m not waxing down my surfboard in my little beach shack) — and if you’re just getting into headphone sound — let me say this: you can spend a lot more bucks and not get much better performance than this good Grado setup can deliver. It is soprano-friendly, but the price is user-friendly.

Catchya later. Dudeliness.

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