Grado The Hemp Headphone Review

Pad-rolling

Sennheiser 414 ‘Yellow’ pads with Quarter mod)

The Sennheiser pads are a clear comfort upgrade over the Stock F-Cush pads and are also closest to them in terms of overall signature. While they also have an exposed driver thanks to the ‘Quarter mod’, the thicker pads move the driver further away from the ear, and as a result, offer a slightly drier tone with less immediacy. The 414 pads also cause upper mids to dip slightly, along with a lowering in mid-bass impact. 

S-Cush ‘flat pads’

The stock pads on the entry-level ‘Prestige’ Series Grado model give a noticeable improvement in smoothness on The Hemp Headphone, at the expense of treble clarity and overall energy. While they’re far more tolerable in terms of comfort, they do reduce the fun-factor of The Hemp Headphone.

The Hemp Headphone by Grado Labs.

L-Cush ‘bowl pads’

The addition of the OEM Grado ‘bowl’ pads makes for an interesting change. The Hemp Headphone becomes more incisive, with a snappier treble response and a leaner, more spacious overall feel. While this does tame their signature warmth, it might be worth keeping a pair of these pads on-hand to complement the stock pads and change things up from time to time.  

G-Cush 

These sound awful on The Hemp Headphone. They leave a veritable canyon in the mid-range, voices become nasally and distant, and treble is etched and sharp. Avoid. 

Beautiful-audio leather/merino hybrid pads

These terrific-looking aftermarket pads from Beautiful Audio fall somewhere between the stock F-Cush pads and the L-Cush in terms of signature, and also happen to be the most comfortable pick of the bunch. They add a lower treble boost, plus add a bit of additional width and air The Hemp Headphones sound stage. Their overall mid-bass impact is reduced, but it does become tightened-up in the process. While these look great and sound pretty decent too on The Hemp Headphone, they are an expensive aftermarket proposition and do tend to remove much that makes them unique-sounding in the process. 

The Hemp Headphone by Grado Labs.

Amplification and powering    

Grado headphones all fall very much on the sensitive side when it comes to power requirements, and The Hemp Headphone with its 38 ohm 98 dB/mW drivers is no different. It’s an easy pair of headphones to power and will deliver excellent performance from modest sources such as your garden variety smartphone. This should be welcome news for readers who are considering getting into the hobby and might be balking at the prospect of having to spend additional money on source gear and amplifiers. While my Samsung S9+ gets them happily singing at around 60% volume, a quality discrete headphone amplifier will yield nominal audible benefits when fed with decently-recorded and mastered source material.

Portable players and DAC/amp combinations are a terrific match for the relatively compact Hemp Headphone and testing with both the Astell&Kern SA700 and Chord Mojo pulled them up a rung or two up on the sound quality ladder. The AK4492-equipped SA7000 made Bob Marley’s ‘Buffalo Soldier’ feel markedly more alive and vivid, with better overall dynamics as well as control of bass impact. 

The Hemp Headphone yielded expectedly excellent results with a number of solid-state desktop amplifiers, including the Schiit Asgard 3, SMSL SP200, and Questyle CMA600i. Stupidly-high levels of power aren’t required to light-up a session on The Hemp Headphone, just be sure to pair it with an amplifier with low output impedance (>1 ohm) and you ought to be in business. 

The Hemp Headphone by Grado Labs.

There’s nothing like blazing-up some tubes to sweeten the proceedings, and Grados happen to sound excellent on the ‘LO’-impedance output of the Hagerman Tuba amplifier. The Tuba does soften the bass impact somewhat but compensates this with a ‘wetter’, wider sound that ultimately suits the inherent musical nature of The Hemp Headphone. This is definitely my favourite spiritual pairing with The Hemp Headphone, as it helps to unleash their organic sense of soul. 

So, what’s the final verdict?

This is perhaps the most fun I’ve had reviewing a pair of headphones for some time, and perhaps because there’s a ton of fun baked into The Hemp Headphone. They’re a terrific-looking pair of headphones with a great origin story, and they back it up with a rewarding and engaging sound signature. They’re sufficiently different to the rest of the Grado line-up for those who’ve been on the fence about trying a pair to warrant seeking them out and giving them an audition.

The Hemp Headphone by Grado Labs.

It’s also a nice reminder that at the end of the day, music is something that’s been made by humans, and it’s there to enjoy. And that’s also true of The Hemp Headphone from Grado Labs. Catch you all in The Next Episode.