LUXURY LISTENING
Give your butler the afternoon off, kick off your brogues, pour yourself a brandy and sink gently into your favourite leather chair: it’s time for the really, really good stuff
GRADO GS3000X STATEMENT
Luxury, when it comes to headphones, lies in the eye and beneath the fingertips of the beholder, as well as in the ear. These Grados are our favourites in the ‘very expensive indeed’ category, and for good reason – even if the luxury aspect is, to be fair, a little bit patchy.
They’re big open-backed ’phones that feature a whole lot of cocobolo wood for their driver housings, as part of a hybrid metal acoustic chamber. The company puts forward a lot of reasons why this particular wood is so desirable in acoustic terms – but the fact that it looks and feels so dramatic and, yes, luxurious doesn’t do any harm. Elsewhere, the foam earpads and minimally padded leather headband – with only rudimentary adjustment – are less friendly.