Grado Labs Facility Tour

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We were lucky enough to take a tour of the Grado Labs facility in Brooklyn, New York last week. Grado Labs is one of the oldest family owned companies in the audio industry and their headphones and phono cartridges are world renowned. John Grado and his staff were extremely knowledgeable and just a great group of down to earth people.

Tour pictures after the jump.

All of Grado's products are still proudly made in the USA (with the exception of the iGrado).


John Chapais (Chief Engineer and VP of Grado) working in the heart of the Grado facility.


The CNC production machine.





John Chapais' office and test station.


Grado's 45 year old injection molding press that is used to make all of their plastic parts in-house.






Phone Cartridge assembly and packaging.








Headphone assembly.











More headphone assembly.


Amplifier quality control station.



Just a few RA1 headphone amplifiers. Like everything else the woodwork and finish on these was absolutely beautiful. Grado has all of their woodwork done by another family owned business that has been around since 1785.


The very first prototype iGrado headphones. John had mentioned that he may decide to auction off some of his prototypes and rare Grado items for charity in the near future.



Some of John Grado's assorted listening material.


A prototype Grado studio monitor that utilizes four headphone drivers and a woofer.






The Grado listening room.






This is a set of prototype speakers in the listening room. Each line array has 32 headphone drivers and a solid mahogany enclosure. They were an absolute joy to listen to and the subwoofers in the corners are made by Grado as well.




Prototype GS 1000 "Salad Bowls."


The best set of headphones under $50 that I have ever listened to.

It is very safe to say that the success has not gone to their heads at Grado and they are still very concerned about making each and every set of headphones the very best quality possible.

A huge thanks to John Grado and his staff for taking time out of their extremely busy day for us.