[apocalypseon]

 Ok, for all you good listeners, lend your sympathetic ears..

 I'm trying to go down the road to hifi-on-a-budget. My vantage point currently is a 100$ Edifier(chinese-canadian) surround multimedia set. What intitially got me started on my "research" on budget audio was an RB-kit discussion. That got me very quickly to my current wide-eyed fascination(vicarious) with single-driver stuff.

I'm a bit long-winded, usually, but I'll try and cut to the point.

If you loved the sound of Alessandro MS-1 phones(improved Grados, for the unaware) especially in how they didn't care if the music being played through them was the modern "hot-mastered" overly-compressed bla bla type- what would your recommendations be?

PS:I hope the mention of 'headphones' isn't felt as some sort of sacrilege:)

[apocalypseon]

To add to that, I don't want to waste peoples' time-
I'm on an extremely anemic budget. Somewhere around 150 USD stretched. For now. Diy? Yes.

[Mr Peabody]

I haven't heard these yet personally but friends tell me the Mordaunt Short are excellent budget speakers.  So can't say how they would fare as Grado sound alikes but if you want a great bang for the buck product you might give them a try.