Hemp and maple work together to power these high-end headphones
The Hemp Headphones use the familiar Grado design. (Grado/)Brooklyn-based headphone maker Grado is no stranger to replacing plastic or metal with wood in its high-end products. The company’s high-end Reference Series headphones employ mahogany ear cups that have earned a reputation for warm, responsive sound. For its latest limited-edition headphones, Grado has opted for hemp. And while it offers the marketing department plenty of opportunity for marijuana puns, the material actually offers some sonic and sustainability advantages.Grado’s $420 Hemp Headphone took roughly two years from inception to production according to company VP, Jonathan Grado. “The highly compressed hemp creates a damping effect between their fibers,” he explained via email. “This produced a fuller sound and we were pleasantly surprised with the amount of depth we heard.”The hemp creates a unique pattern that's different on each pair. (Grado/)Since each material type resonates differently, Grado tuned its drives specifically to match the...