Grado remains synonymous with great audio and value.

Music for everyone everywhere

The invention of the microphone, radio, phonograph, and tape recorder raised the curtain on music once reserved for the affluent to everyone everywhere. This universal access inspired audio engineering music enthusiasts to elevate the sonic-bar that created high-fidelity audio. In this light, I single out and applaud the high-fidelity achievements of Joseph Grado.

Joseph Grado

Joe Grado, the son of a father who immigrated to America to fulfill his dream of starting a business – a neighborhood fruit store, was an old-school American entrepreneur.

Joe was a master watchmaker, engineer, inventor, artist, airplane pilot, a New York Metropolitan Opera tenor, and a high-fidelity audio-trailblazer. I heard (but have not confirmed) he was also a concert violinist.
However, his friend and IT consultant of many years confirmed he did build violins.

Throughout his lifetime, Audio Hall of Famer and music devotee Joe Grado was awarded 48 audio patents and established the legendary family business, Grado Labs. Grado phono cartridges and headphones are rightly recognized as world-class by audio enthusiasts.

The 1950s

Joe Grado had held several non-audio businesses when he undertook a product design project for audio legend Saul Marantz, who introduced Joe to Sherman Fairchild of Fairchild Industries.

Sherman Fairchild was a brilliant inventor, audio enthusiast, and founder of over 70 companies (aviation, camera, instrument, semiconductor), which included the manufacture of phono cartridges.

Fairchild engaged Joe’s master watchmaker & engineering talent to fix quality control issues in the Fairchild cartridge production line. Fortunately for audio enthusiasts, the experience inspired Joe to experiment with his own cartridge designs.

Joe Grado initially built his cartridges on his kitchen table, which he sold to local HiFi shops.
In 1953, his father closed the fruit store, and Joe moved from his kitchen to build a production line in his father’s vacant building. Grado Labs still resides in that Brooklyn Sunset Park neighborhood building.

The Phono Cartridge

A phono cartridge is essentially an electrical generator.
It’s the device mounted at the end of a turntable tone arm.
It generates voltage as its modulating stylus rides in the groove of a record.

Most high-fidelity versions generate voltage via moving-magnet or moving-coil technology.

Note: For simplicity, the two cartridge diagrams below illustrate only 1 attached magnet near stationary wire coils, and 1 attached coiled wire near a stationary magnet. An actual stereo cartridge has 2 sets of attached magnets surrounded by wire coils or vice versa. 1 set for each stereo channel.

A cartridge’s modulating stylus generates the motion of attached magnets encircled by wire coils,
or wire coils, by magnets.
Modulating magnets near wire coils, or vice versa, generates voltage.
The voltage is a reproduction of the voltage sourced from a studio master recording.

This fact may surprise audio enthusiasts.
Joe Grado invented and patented the moving coil cartridge.
He received moving coil patent royalty payments for many years.
However, he ultimately abandoned the use of moving coil technology.
Instead, he invented, patented, and engaged the Flux-Bridger Generator.

Flux-Bridger Generator

Joe Grado’s Flux-Bridger Generator replaces moving coils and moving magnets with a miniature ‘bridging’ moving iron element.
( Diagram C = Miniature Generating Iron Element )

The Bridge

• The miniature iron element ‘bridges’ across and near four stationary magnet poles.
• Copper wire coils surround each stationary magnet.
• The poles are paired – one pair for each stereo channel.
( Diagram each G = Paired Poles )

The Flux Generator

• The cartridge stylus modulates the attached iron-element ‘bridged’ across the paired poles.
• The modulation increases/decreases the magnetic flux at each of the paired poles.
• The modulating flux induces voltage in the copper wire coils.
• That voltage is an analog of the original recorded voltage.

The Flux-Bridger Generator’s iron element offers lower mass than a heavier moving magnet and higher output than a typical moving coil cartridge. The result is fast and accurate tracking, low noise, detailed, rich sound.

Rise & Fall of Vinyl

Grado Labs rode the 1970s boomer-wave of vinyl LP sales.
By 1980, Grado was producing 10,000 cartridges per week.

Grado cartridges ranged from a $19.00 cartridge (often recommended over competitor $80.00 cartridges)
to the Grado Signature $1000 prized audiophile high-end cartridge.
Grado had become synonymous with great high-fidelity sound and genuine value at each price point.

Business was great until vinyl LP sales plunged in the mid-1980s through the early 1990s.
Grado sales had dropped to 12,000 cartridges per year.
And unlike cartridge brands as Shure, which also manufactured pro audio gear, Grado was dependent solely on the cartridge.

Now in his late 60s, Joe Grado prepared to shut down Grado Labs.
But in a twist of fate, he turned the business reins over to his nephew, John.

The Grado Headphone

John Grado grew up in his uncle Joe’s building, sweeping the floor as a youngster.
Now he was in charge, and had to find a way to rescue the business – and he did.

John recognized that the owners of portable music players, as the Walkman & ultimately the iPod, sought better headphones. He applied his uncle’s audio resonance control techniques to create Grado Headphones.

John Grado rewrote the book on headphone performance with the $595.00 Grado HP1.
He followed the HP2 with the introduction of the entry-level $69 Grado SR 60.

It was a ‘home run’ decision.
Grado Labs is now also celebrated for the Prestige, Reference, Professional, and Statement headphones.
John Grado introduced a new generation to high-fidelity audio.

Grado Legacy

The Audio Hall of Fame inducted Joe Grado in 1982.
Joe remained involved in the development of the Grado Lineage series cartridges and Grado Signature headphones under John’s stewardship.
In 2015, the Grado family and the audio world lost Joe at the age of ninety.
But Joe Grado remains synonymous with great audio and value as the family (Joe’s nephew John, John’s brother Richard Grado, and John’s sons Matthew Grado and Jonathan Grado) carries on the spirit of Joe in the same Brooklyn building where it all began.