Grado The Hemp Headphone Review

Packaging and presentation

Grado famously doesn’t spend money on traditional advertising, preferring to rely on the reputation of their products and the evangelising of their owners. They famously don’t spend much when it comes to packaging either, and The Hemp Headphone is no different in that regard. It arrives in a white, spartan flat ‘pizza box’ nestled in a foam cutout along with a 3.5mm > 6.3mm stereo adapter. And that’s it – like all Grado headphones it’s a bare-bones experience, and presumably this allows Grado Labs to spend elsewhere, namely focusing on creating hand-crafted, time-honoured audiophile equipment – which has been their modus operandi for the past 70-odd years. 

The Hemp Headphone by Grado Labs.

Build, design, and comfort

From arms’-length, we’re talking classic Grados here. You know, the whole World War 2 radio operator vibe. The Hemp Headphone is an exceptionally light pair of essentially ‘on-ear’ headphones, the small-diameter cups resting against your ear rather than encircling them. While the light-weight form-factor doesn’t feel hugely confidence-inspiring, The Hemp Headphone feels well-crafted and looks considerably more premium than the standard consumer-grade plastic stuff that you’d see at the library or airport lounge. 

The Hemp Headphone by Grado Labs.

While I couldn’t find out too much about the exact construction process used to create the signature hemp earcups, I understand that dried hemp fibres can be bonded together under high pressure to create a ‘wood-y’ substance, and that’s what we appear to have on our hands here. The earcups look terrific up-close thanks to each pair’s unique dark swirling effect flowing through the organic material. Peel back the earpads, and you can see how Grado has neatly sandwiched the hemp outer cup with a maple inner core that cradles the driver. 

Articulating and adjusting the headphone is exactly the same as it is on the $79 SR60e and the $2,695 PS2000e. Grado uses the same gimbal and rod-block assembly across the range because it’s simple, proven and it tends to work well – finding the right fit is a simple case of sliding the rods and swiveling the earcups. The black leather headband uses minimal padding, but it’s really not important as The Hemp Headphone is so light in weight. I had some hemp cord laying around, and spent 5 minutes wrapping the headband for a nice, thematic match. It doesn’t change things in terms of comfort, but I thought it looked kinda cool (feel free to borrow the idea @Gradolabs, ok?). 

The Hemp Headphone by Grado Labs.

You can copy-paste comments about The Hemp Headphone’s cable from any other Grado review, and so I won’t spend too much time complaining. But let me be blunt: it’s permanently attached, thick, and unwieldy. Now I know some people who actually like this style of cable, and I can acknowledge two things: it’s not likely to ever break, and it’s thankfully not microphonic. But, with a pair of headphones as lightweight as these, it does get pretty cumbersome when you have to deal with something as thick as an electrical cord on your desk, or in your pocket. I thought that Grado might be moving towards something different with the sheathed fabric design on the HF3, but it doesn’t seem like we should hold our collective breath just yet. 

The Hemp Headphone by Grado Labs.

As mentioned previously, The Hemp Headphone is an outlier in the Grado line-up in terms of the pads it ships with. Rather than shipping with the L-Cush pads featured on similarly-priced Grados such as the SR325e or RS2e, The Hemp Headphone is paired with what Grado is calling ‘F-Cush’ pads – the same flat pads with the central cut-out over the driver sold by Todd the Vinyl Junkie. This has no doubt been a deliberate choice to help aid with The Hemp Headphone’s overall voicing, but I find it to be the most uncomfortable option for me, relatively speaking. Because the driver rests against the pinna and the foam itself is quite thin, it tends to get somewhat abrasive and I need a break after 90 minutes or so of listening (of course, your mileage may vary). Now, I have just about every set of Grado pads under the sun on hand to test out, and literally every one of them is an upgrade in the comfort department over these F-Cush pads. More on this later, but there are some substantial audible considerations when swapping pads on The Hemp Headphone, and not necessarily for the best.    

Head over to page 3 to read more.