Grado Labs was founded by Joseph Grado in 1953. The former watch maker began hand-making phono cartridges on his kitchen table, above the family’s Brooklyn fruit store. The inventor of the stereo moving-coil phono cartridge, Joseph Grado retired in 1990, passing the torch of the company to his nephew, John Grado. John Grado created the first line of Grado headphones, building them at a workbench with his wife, Loretta, and selling them by attending audio shows, where we gradually built a worldwide distributor and reseller network. Over the years, Grado Labs became famous for both dynamic headphones and phono cartridge designs and the company remains family owned, and operating out of the same Brooklyn building where they started.
As a company, Grado always remained a very low profile operation, relying on its worldwide distributors for most of its marketing, until Jonathan Grado, John's son, joined the company in 2013 to head the brand's marketing and social media strategy. John is now expanding Grado's portfolio with limited edition models and lifestyle products, which are a great fit for online retaillers. 4OurEars.com Official Grado Store will be an important tool to expand that direct-to-consumer strategy.
Exclusive to the store is the Custom Shop which allows fans and brands to buy personalized, hand made versions of popular Grado headphones alongside boxes and stands available only through the store. The Hemp Headphone by Grado is one of the Limited Edition lineup models available. Some of the past Grado LE headphones have used woods from local Brooklyn trees, Norwegian Wood because of love for the Beatles, and now Hemp Wood, which is currently being used in many industries, 20% harder than oak, and easily cut to shape. Visitors to 4OurEars will be able to select a range of accessories, including wood stands, wood boxes and hardshell cases.
The Grado GT220, the first true wireless earphone by Grado is the most recent product available on the store. The TWS design differentiates with its exclusive 8mm dynamic drivers, carefully tuned and tweaked to sound worthy of the brand. Other features include an updated Bluetooth 5.0 platform with aptX and AAC support, touch controls on the ergonomic earbuds, and battery life of 6 hours with an additional five full charges stored in the charging case for a total charge of up to 36 hours. The storage/charging case offers Qi compatible wireless charging as well as USB-C charging.
4OurEars also sells Technics turntables, audiophile personal music players from Astell & Kern and headphone amps from Schiit Audio.
www.gradolabs.com
www.4ourears.com
