Grado Labs

Lore & Background

Grado Labs began in 1953 when Joseph Grado, a master watchmaker, left Tiffany & Company and Sherman Fairchild to make phono cartridges at his kitchen table in Brooklyn. After seeing a market for cartridges, he converted a family fruit shop into Grado Laboratories. Joseph invented the first stereo moving coil phono cartridge and built up the company's cartridge lineup, while also producing speakers, turntables, and tonearms—though cartridges remained the only product line not discontinued. In 1965, Joseph's nephew John Grado started sweeping floors at the company, eventually taking over day-to-day operations in 1975. By the mid-1980s, cartridge production peaked at 10,000 units per week, but later dipped to 12,000 units for an entire year.

With the company near closing, John Grado bought it from his uncle in 1990 and became President and CEO. He created the first line of Grado headphones in the early 1990s, building them at a workbench with his wife Loretta while the family lived on the top floor of Grado's Brooklyn building. Instead of conventional advertising, John traveled to audio shows worldwide to promote products; once he established a distributor list in multiple countries, he stopped attending shows to spend time with family. The first wooden Grado headphones appeared in 1994, and the first wooden phono cartridge and headphone amp followed in 1996. The i series launched in 2008 with improved drivers and cables.

In 2013, John's son Jonathan Grado entered the company, initially embarrassed by the family business but later starting its Facebook and Twitter pages during college. He became Social Media Director and, after graduating and working at Sonos, joined Grado full-time. Late 2013 brought a collaboration creating experimental headphones from Bushmills whiskey barrels. In 2014, Jonathan became Vice President of Marketing, working with a zero-dollar ad budget, and that year Grado was named among Mashable's Top Eight Most Social Small Companies in America. The e Series headphones launched in 2014 with better damping and lower distortion. In 2021, the Prestige X series introduced new X drivers and efficiency improvements. In March 2026, the Classic series superseded the Prestige x, Reference, and Statement lineups, featuring new X2 drivers and a softer cable.

Reader's Guide

Grado Labs' significance lies in its long-standing family ownership and commitment to hand-built, high-fidelity audio products made in Brooklyn, New York. Over more than six decades, the company has maintained a deliberately low profile, eschewing mass advertising in favor of word-of-mouth among audio dealers and consumers. This approach, combined with a focus on dynamic open-air, supra-aural headphones and phono cartridges, has cultivated a dedicated following. The company's history reflects a series of strategic pivots: from its origins in phono cartridges—where Joseph Grado invented the first stereo moving coil cartridge—to the creation of its first headphone line in the early 1990s, which saved the company from closure. The introduction of wooden headphones in 1994 and wooden cartridges in 1996 established a distinctive aesthetic. Under John Grado's leadership, the company produced three generations of headphone lines and revived cartridge production to over 60,000 units per year. The entry of Jonathan Grado in 2013 modernized the brand through social media, leading to recognition as one of America's top social small companies and a partnership with JetBlue Airways in 2015. The 2026 release of the Classic series with X2 drivers marks the latest evolution, while the company continues to hand-assemble and test each cartridge for frequency response, channel output, and other parameters.

Did You Know?

• At its peak in the mid-1980s, Grado produced 10,000 cartridges per week.
• The first Grado headphones were built by John Grado and his wife Loretta at a workbench in the early 1990s.