"The Grado Towers" John Grado designed these speakers to use 32 stacked headphone drivers. They never made it to production, because a glowing review of the company’s SR60 headphones came out and business took off. “We couldn’t make things fast enough.”

Switcher Box One of Grado's engineers WIRED this up. No matter what source you're playing, hit a button and the system switches from tube to solid-state or vice versa. Grado uses it to ensure the phones are technology-agnostic.

1. Balanced Headphone Amplifier Balanced headphones use an individual ground wire for each channel. Grado will balance any of its cans for $150, but it gets only a few requests a year. They made this amp in house to test them.

2. Joseph Grado Signature Headphone Amp High-end audio gear often lacks a place to plug in headphones. That’s why people employ headphone amps. Grado made this one in the early ’90s. “We were trying to sell high-end headphones to people who didn’t have a place to plug them in.”

Micro Seiki DQX-500 This ’80s turntable is special on its own, but Grado’s is outfitted with a tone arm designed by Joseph Grado—the company’s founder and John’s uncle—as well as a prototype high-end cartridge that’s set for production in 2015.

Each of the plastic gimbal rings on Grado’s entry-level SR60s is drilled in the Grado

family basement.

The storage room used to have a different name: Jonathan’s bedroom. It’s where John’s son grew up, until the family had to move out of the building to accommodate the growing factory.

Omega headphone stand

You probably wouldn’t expect that this typical Brooklyn doorway was the entryway to audio nirvana, but it is.

John Grado