Grado's Signature HP100 SE headphones arrive with '90s looks and a next-gen sound
Paying homage to the classic HP1 headphones...
Grado has been a go-to maker of open-backed headphones for years now — the headphone design style that lets air pass through the ear cups from the rear of each speaker driver for a more natural and wider soundstage. If you’ve got deep enough pockets, the new Grado Signature HP1000 SE headphones add a touch of luxury to the mix, too.
Taking their cues from the classic Signature HP1 release from the early 90s (considered by some a milestone early release in luxury audiophile headphones), the HP1000 SE fuses newly engineered drivers with a carefully hand built construction out of Grado’s HQ in cooler-than-cool Brooklyn.
The HP100SE pumps your tunes through a new 52mm driver that features a “new paper composite cone [...], powerful high flux magnetic circuit using rare earth alloys, and a new voice coil made from lightweight copper-plated aluminium.” Grado says this produces “a voicing that is musically and harmonically correct,” with little bass distortion, smooth midrange and clear high frequencies, “excellent” dynamics and a “highly refined sense of space, soundstage and image.”
They look the part too, with a retro aesthetic that’ll please old-school audio nerds. Each housing is individually machined from specially-treated aluminium, with a space-grey exterior. Detachable cables, terminating in a 6.3mm plug, connect to each can with a 4pin mini XLR plug, covered in a red / black topper that mimics Hi-Fi speaker cabling.
Detachable cables give the HP1000SE some long-term sustainability, considering cables are usually the first element to give up the ghost on headphones. But there’s another practical quality-of-life consideration here too — high-end headphones have demanding users hooking them up to varied bits of kit, and allow for different cable types to be swapped in and out.
Rounding out the design is a revised headband assembly. Packing in 50% more padding than previous Grado models, it uses a stainless steel band and adjustable height rods for a spot-on fit, with a mechanism that allows the cans to rotate 105-degrees.
Launching in November and available from the Grado website, expect to part with £2,795 / $2,495 to get the Signature HP1000SE headphones over your ears.
- Looking for something different? Check out more of our headphones coverage