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In a world awash with cheap electronics, Grado Labs is in its seventh decade of crafting top-flight headphones largely by hand.
We’re Obsessed
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The Best Headphones Made To The Beat Of Brooklyn
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A Family-Run Headphones Empire
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An unmistakable style where refinement, premium materials, meticulous design, and harmony of the bass-mid-bass trio sublimate the listening.
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Audio equipment as art
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The best audio gear in the business
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The Best Headphones in the World
Grado Labs has built a strong reputation for its specialty headphones and phonograph cartridges since opening its doors in Brooklyn more than 60 years ago
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With devotees including Neil Young, director Spike Jonze and Aerosmith, Grado is putting a new, hyperlocal twist on the concept of Brooklyn-made
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These are the only headphones you'll ever need
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John Grado is a brilliant maker and innovator
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…New York audio wizards…
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(one of)"The Top 8 Most Social Small Companies in America"
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How A Tiny, Family-Run Headphone Maker Became A Cult Favorite Of Neil Young, Aerosmith, And Spike Jonze
Audiophiles laud the company’s headphones for their warm, pristine sound
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Pursuing quality first and profit second
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…the little-known, well-loved line of headphones.
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Since 1953, the Grado family has been...in a South Brooklyn brownstone converted into a factory, which they’ve owned for nearly a century. The 18-person company, Grado Labs, has never advertised—a cultish audiophile customer base drives its sales through word-of mouth.
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Grado began his business in the early '50s, making turntable cartridges -- inventing the stereo moving coil turntable cartridge in the process, a type still preferred by audiophiles -- on his kitchen table. Three years later, the aforementioned fruit storefront would be converted to Grado Laboratories, located in the same spot in Sunset Park, Brooklyn to this day.
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Their new Heritage Series GH1 headphones are carved from a tree that stood near the company’s original headquarters in industrial Sunset Park, Brooklyn. “These trees were about to fall down,” says 24-year-old apprentice, and great-nephew, Jonathan Grado. “We bought one from the city and made a bunch of headphones.
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How Jonathan Grado helps shape the world of headphones
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The family-run and owned business has seen three generations of Grado’s come through, and with each generation, one big thing hasn’t changed — its reliance on word of mouth instead of traditional marketing.
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The family-run and owned business has seen three generations of Grado’s come through, and with each generation, one big thing hasn’t changed — its reliance on word of mouth instead of traditional marketing.
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For audiophiles, the path to paradise leads to an unmarked, graffiti-stained door in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.