In a world awash with cheap electronics, Grado Labs is in its seventh decade of crafting top-flight headphones largely by hand.
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The Best Headphones Made To The Beat Of Brooklyn
A Family-Run Headphones Empire
An unmistakable style where refinement, premium materials, meticulous design, and harmony of the bass-mid-bass trio sublimate the listening.
Audio equipment as art
The best audio gear in the business
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
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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John Grado is a brilliant maker and innovator
…New York audio wizards…
(one of)"The Top 8 Most Social Small Companies in America"
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
Pursuing quality first and profit second
…the little-known, well-loved line of headphones.
Since 1953, the Grado family has been making headphones and phonograph cartridges by hand 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-ofmouth.
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.
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.
How Jonathan Grado helps shape the world of headphones
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.
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.
For audiophiles, the path to paradise leads to an unmarked, graffiti-stained door in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
