I owned a pair of grado sr80's previously to buying these. I loved my sr80's, but I was curious to try the higher end models. I was about to buy the sr225's, but decided to go all out and jump to the 325s. It was well worth it. After their burn in period, there's a huge difference between these and the sr80's. The vocals are more distinct, everything is more detailed, and everything seems to be more harmonious. The bass is still there, but it's blended it much better. I just own these and a pair of triple fi 10 iem for portable use. I am not an expert when it comes with audiophile headphones and will not try to use an extensive vocabulary to describe the most simple qualities of sound, but I recognize when something sounds amazing and these headphones do.

cantinflas007

Austin, TX

So, let me preface this review by saying that I am running these on a early 2008 Macbook Pro through a NuForce uDac and a Original Master Amp. I have two other pairs of headphones: a Shure SE210 IEM for portable use, a AKG K601 for relaxing, and a Shure SH840 for use at the library etc when I want a fuller sound and full-size headphones. The K601s, if you know about headphones or use them, have a very wide, airy sound that's really excellent for acoustic music and female vocals etc. They're nice, without a doubt, but they're very laidback, and so when you try to listen to anything that's more energetic--rock, alternative, anything with bass--it's as though they sucked the life out of the recording.    Enter the Grado 325is. I had a pair of SR60s for a while so I was somewhat familiar with the very distinctive Grado sound which I can't begin to describe. Suffice to say that these things make all your music come to life. They're the perfect complement to something airy and neutral (neutral meaning that they don't 'color' the original recording and try to reproduce the original recording as faithfully as possible).  For the first few hundred (maybe less--I kept my computer running and playing white noise to break these in) hours, these headphones were PIERCING. I literally couldn't wear them for more than an hour. That's changed with time, though, and now my only complaint about these headphones is the decidedly average build quality, especially for headphones as expensive as these. The packaging is also what you'd expect from someone working out of their garage, which is fine and not surprising since Grado is a low budget operation (Google to see some pics), but it just doesn't make me feel good about spending so much. They do sound awesome, though, which is ultimately what matters the most and because of that they've earned a permanent spot in my headphones collection.

nfbother

Somerville, MA