I'm thinking about picking up a pair of Grado SR-60 phones on my next trip to the states, after reading a lot of positive reviews. The cost is right in my price range. Although they will also get used with my home stereo plugged into a Pioneer integrated amp, I will mainly use them with my 3rd gen iPod. I travel a lot, and am currently using Senn MX-300 earbuds. They're fine for back and forth to work, but I'd like a bit better sound when I'm out of town. I don't listen at excessive volume levels, and my music is mainly rock, hard rock, metal and blues; lots of guitar. All my encodes are 192 AAC using iTunes/QT.

Will the iPod be able to drive the SR-60's at reasonable levels? I might get a small portable headphone amp, like the XIN Super Mini Amp (link below). On a side note, anyone have experience with this amp?

http://www.fixup.net/products/pktamp/smini.htm

It'll drive them just fine. I use a pair of SR-80's with my iPod, and I don't need the aid of an external headphone amp to get them nice and loud. Enjoy them: if they're anything like their more expensive relatives, they'll sound phenomenal. I've got nothing but love for mine.

Now, if only these high-end alt--presets didn't drain the iPod's battery so quickly (I usually get around 5 hours with 10GB of music encoded at APS).

Out of curiosity, what did you pay for the SR-80's?

I believe the 60's are around $65, though I haven't really done a proper price search...

Wow, thats ultra cheap!
These are the prices we pay for Grado headphones in Norway:
* Grado SR60 = NOK 1245,- / 7 = USD 178,-
* Grado SR80 = NOK 1695,- / 7 = USD 242,-
* Grado SR225 = NOK 3495,- / 7 = USD 500,-

I have a pair of Grado SR80 and a 3G iPod. They match up perfectly!

Solaris

I've heared some European iPods are volume-limited.

If they are limited with the ultra-mini buds that came with the player in mind, it might not leave much effect on some thing that is a bit harder to drive.

This site might help, if you think you are affected:
http://members.brabant.chello.nl/~m.heijli...pod/volume.html

Yep, EU iPods are limited. I use a utility call EUPod VolumeBoost to give 40% boost to my AAC files after uploading them to the iPod.

Solaris: Here in Finland the price is not so high, but still about 2x the price from the states. Luckily I make regular trips there on business. At the time I bought my 20GB iPod last fall, they were about 500 EUR here, got mine for 389 duty-free in Paris airport. At current exchange rate, same model is about 350 EUR today...