See how Grado headphones are made in Brooklyn (pictures)

The tricky part about documenting how a Grado headphone is made is they don't make them from start-to-finish in easy-to-follow steps. John and Jonathan Grado did their best to slow down the process to give me an opportunity to illustrate as many of the steps of building a Grado SR60e as possible. Grado doesn't just build its expensive models in Brooklyn, NY, all of the "e" Series headphones are made there. I covered the fabrication and assembly of a SR60e headphone for this photo gallery.

Here's a finished pair of SR60e headphones.

John and Jonathan in front of finished and boxed headphones awaiting shipment.

Grado Laboratories world headquarters; that's the front door!

Plastic Grado headphone parts coming off the injection-molding machine.

Driver cover, left, and driver, right.

Bonding the driver cover to the driver.

The driver, left, after the driver has been bonded to the driver housing, right.

Pre-soldering driver terminals.

Soldering cables to driver.

Listening to check cable connections.

Aligning cable in preparation for rear housing cover attachment.

Applying glue for rear housing attachment.

Clamping and aligning driver housing.

Inserting stainless-steel spring into headband.

Aligning headband for junction block attachment.

Securing junction block to headband with a rubber hammer.

Applying L and R letters to headband.

Attaching finished driver/earcup housing to headband.

The technician's last visual check.

Fitting the cushions on the driver housing.

Checking cushion alignment by hand.

At last! Boxing the headphones!

These prototype Grado headphones are in John and Jonathan Grado's private listening room.