Sound Clout

For audiophiles, the path to paradise leads to an unmarked, graffiti-stained door in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Walking through it feels like stepping back in time to some sepia-toned factory floor: the smell of soldering irons, the dut-dut-dut of an antique injection molding machine, the polyglot team of artisans tinkering away.

This is Grado Labs, a third-generation family business that has quietly builtbliss.” Another claimed that, when listening to an orchestral recording of Mahler, he could actually hear the string players “breathing in time” with the conductor. “What we push is sound,” says John Grado, the owner and chief executive.