Let me save you the trouble of reading my review:Don't buy it
Written: Jun 28 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: lightweight, small
Cons: expensive, poor sound quality, proprietary, no AC plug
The Bottom Line: Don't buy it, it's that simple, there are better, cheaper, higher quality headphone amps out there.
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| zoogelsnof's Full Review: Grado Labs RA1 Headphone Amplifier |
Disclaimer:
I need to start with a small disclaimer: I love sound, I’m obsessed with it, and I listen to sound all day and all night on all sorts of different mediums. Due to my audiophile nature it is very possible there are things that would bother me in a set of headphones that most people wouldn’t notice, or care about, so keep that in mind during this review.
Overview
Many people say, “why a headphone amplifier? Well, the truth is, over about $60 headphones, the amplifier that is inside your little portable CD player isn’t nearly powerful enough to bring out their full beauty. A portable amplifier can drastically increase the quality of the sound you are hearing. They are most useful if you can’t carry a full sound set around, but still want a good sound. (perhaps in a dorm room, or at your desk at work) but are not lightweight enough that I would carry it while I walk my dog. (My rule on dog walks: If it doesn’t fit in my pockets, it’s too big to be carrying.) This is not a bad amp, but it has one severe drawback, and there are certainly better amps in this price range.
I was excited when we got a stock of these in (6 of em!) and immediately took one to uhm…check that it wasn’t damaged in shipping…yah..that’s it…and was sadly disappointed when, despite my excitement at an item of this price (mid-priced for a headphone amp) and from this brand name (not as good as Sennheiser, but still a high quality brand) they couldn’t make a better amp. I tested it out that day at my desk doing all the, “boss stuff” paperwork and what not and was simply under whelmed.
Goods:
Lightweight: Sometimes headphone amp’s can get a big bulky, but Grado managed to keep this guy fairly lightweight and fairly small so that it could actually be transported.
Easy To Use: There’s very little on it to figure out. It features an on/off LED, a 1/4th headphone jack, and on/off switch, and one pair of left/right RCA inputs. It’s virtually idiot proof to use.
Bads:
Battery Setup: It is powered by two-9V battery’s that are kept under a plate with two screws on it. I HATE SCREW ON PLATES!!!! I always have to go hunt up a damn screwdriver and this is a major pet peeve of mine for which it received major Brownie point deductions.
Proprietary Nature: These are designed specifically for Grado headphones and don’t work as well on non-Grado’s.
Sound Quality: If I fork over $350 I expect a pretty big sound quality boost, but the boost these gave sounded much more like a $100 amp then a $350. They certainly sounded better (the highs especially) but not as good as a $350 headroom amp sounds. (A product I highly recommend.)
No-AC plug: The absolute deaths kneel to this amp is the lack of an AC adapter plug. It will only run on the batteries, which is no good considering the price of 9-Volt batteries. I’m afraid I didn’t run them all the way down, so I don’t know how long they last, but average for an amp is around 30-60 hours.
Bottom Line
**note, these are related to price, EG, it’s not sound quality related to the best sound in the world, it’s sound quality related to the other things in this price range.**
Sound Quality:C
Portability:B+
Ease of Use:A
User Tilt:F
Overall:C-
If you are looking for a high quality headphone amp I highly recommend Headroom amps from www.headphone.com, I use one personally and they make a very high quality amp.
Recommended:
No
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zoogelsnof
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Member: Zac Cramer
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