GW100x

Grado claims these have a long battery life. However, when the battery gets down to 30% (as supplied by the headphones to my computer), the annoying woman's voice cuts in every 30 seconds to say "low battery". This is incredibly amateurish, Just let the headphones run out of battery, FFS. We aren't using them to fly an airplane. If the sound stops, nothig bad happens. My car is less cranky about actual safety announcements.

What else is wrong with the firmware?
- It supports two devices, but they set up the pairing sequence in the wrong order such that once it's paired with one device, it will immediately pair with that device on power-up, even if you hold the power button to pair with a second device.
- There is no way to disconnect it from a device if that device is in proximity without going to the device and disconnecting. This leads to interesting issues when it's paired to a personal device that's idle (like my personal laptop) and I am using the work laptop. I have to open and sign on to the personal laptop, unpair, put the laptop away, and then pair with the work laptop. I noticed that if i take too long to do this the headphones will pair again with the original and i have to do it all over again.
- The female voice is not a voiceover professional or may as well not be. I will guess it's a member of the family or may as well be. It's grating. I don't want to hear this chipper girl talk every time I turn on my headphones. Compare with Sony, who get this right with a dispassionate voice that's also had the highs tamped down to take away the edge.

Other issues:
- Exposed wires from the headband to the cans on either side are vulnerable to being damaged if you grab the headphones wrong. Grado has a way of using wires on headphones that seems to invite damage. See also the heavy captive cables on other models.
- My friends can't believe that for the price, no bag or case was provided.
- They're tight on my head, which is not enormous
- As other reviewers (here or elsewhere if not here) have noted, the build feels cheap. But we are used to plastic parts from Grado and ignore that concern for the remarkable sound (that these just don't produce, though it's close).

Anyway, the "LOW BATTERY" blabbering with 30% capacity reported to the computer is what prompted me to finally post a review. The sound is also a bit sharp and harsh at the highigh end. I thought maybe it would go away after some use but it didn't. So I have to EQ, which sucks because that creates annoyances in the players. My totally modest SR-60s sounds so good out of the box. Why can't these.

Others have expressed these same concerns. They and I want to support the hometown heroes, but we're not getting the love back. Grado doesn't do microelectronics so it's obviously an exported white-label product.

This is the only open wireless headphone on the market with a cable option. It has potentially great battery life wrecked by the voice every 30 seconds from 30% of battery life and presumable down (have not lasted more than 60 seconds after that begins).

But the devil is in the details and the total package is a letdown in terms of overall performance in the things that users interact with everyday.

A firmware update could fix the problems with the interface and the voice and the annoying interruptions but to my knowledge there has never been one. Getting the sound to really sound like Grado without the sharp high end? Maybe an impossible wish.

The sound quality of these phones does seem to be an improvement over the GW100, at least you can increase the volume higher than the older phones. The Bluetooth connectivity is more stable it doesn't get as badly interrupted while walking across an intersection in NYC, like with the GW100 phones. But you can still occasionally hear some crackle when it's struggling to maintain the wireless connection, and sometimes seems to lose audio quality due to interference, but usually recovers quickly. One thing that annoys me is the "announcer" voice that declares when it's powering on or off, or connecting is surprisingly quiet, and often hard to hear, the voice is much louder on the GW100 phones.

OK sound, dosnt live up to the expectation

I love the sound of these, and the super light weight. It's perhaps a niche item, open-backed, Bluetooth, on-ear headphones, but if that's what you want I think these are great! I wear them when taking walks, when I also want to be aware of my surroundings, and it's a great setup for me.

Amazing gift I bought myself!! Thanks