Bose TriPort Headphones
- Design: Over the Head
- Usage: Consumer
- Sound Mode: Stereo
- Connectivity: Cable
- Compatibility: Home Audio Personal Audio Computers
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Wonderful Sound Only Spoiled by some Bad Design
Pros
Excellent sound reproduction Ergonomic and Comfortable earcup design
Cons
Badly designed adjustment assembly Badly designed wiring
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
It's a great buy right until you hear that cracking sound of cheap plastic.
I'm sure everyone has at one point frowned at the ubiquitous label - "Made in China" that appears on practically everything you own. Sometimes even if there may be nothing wrong with it (or may ever go wrong). On this particular occasion I was amused and maybe even a little more reassured at spotting - "Engineered in USA, Assembled in China". This of course is nothing new. On most other products the "Designed in USA" bit is just omitted.
I'm now holding bits and pieces of the flimsily designed Bose headphones. Now the last thing want to do here is make a sweeping statement and destroy this review so let me break this down.
Sound Quality (9.6)
Since sound is what it's all about I want to comment on a few different aspects of it.
Reproduction (9.8)
Simply put these headphones are very true to the recording. If you play badly encoded mp3s it will faithfully reproduce the glitches. On some tracks I could hear the background noise which I could not hear with any of my older headphones. These headphones do not make an attempt to alter the original sound and the amount of detail you begin to hear is quite evident.
Frequency Response (9)
The response for high to mid-range frequencies is excellent and very crisp. For the boom box buffs who have two sub-woofers behind their rear seat, the base on these headphones may not be satisfactory. I find the base to be just right for most of my listening needs. However this is only an artifact of playing media straight from your sound card or IPod without modification. An equalizer (software or hardware) can greatly enhance the low notes.
Surround Effects (10)
Watching a DVD with the headphones creates quite an impressive effect. While listening to THX or Dolby tracks once again the audio detail that can be heard creates a significant effect. This effect of immersion is also partly due to how well the headphones fit around the ear and block external noises. More on that in the following section.
I could write about how the multiple speaker ports make a difference but you can read the technical details straight from any Bose retailer site.
Comfort (10)
I used to be under the impression that the most comfortable headphones would have to be huge and bulky which look like you're about to fly a 747. The Triports have proven that this doesn't have be the case. Every headphone I've owned in the past would stay on my head (or in my ear) for at most an hour or two. Regardless of whether if they were over-the-ear or in-the-ear type some form of pain would start to set in after the initial hour of listening. The over-the-ear types would invariably crush my earlobes (and no I don't have large floppy ears).
Bose has designed well around this problem without losing portability. The earcup is probably the single most important invention that differentiates Bose from most other brands. The ear cushion material feels like leather, very supple and just about 0.6 of an inch in thickness. This allows for the cushion to encircle the entire ear. Inside the cup's casing the speaker screen is placed at an angle which creates a perfect cavity where the pinna sits. This solves all the problems at one go. (1) You get excellent insulation from external sounds (even without noise cancellation). (2) The effect of immersion is greatly enhanced. (3) Since nothing is really messing with parts of the ear, you can keep the headphones on for long periods of time. For example I keep these on an average of 6 hours a day. The longest I've gone without taking these off was 13 hours! After a while even if no music is playing I tend to forget that I have them on.
Durability & Construction (5.5)
This is where the ball drops. The area where Bose fails miserably is in the design of the parts that sustain most wear and tear.
Earcup Design (10)
Swivel Earphones (8)
Each earphone is hinged such that it can twist in the range of 20 degrees. This allows for a pretty good fit for all head shapes. On the QuietComfort version the cups twist all the way down for easy storage. The minor problem here is that the hinge is very squeaky when you fidget with the headphones while you have them on. I'm almost compelled to drop in some WD40 into the joint.
Size Adjustment Assembly (2)
The metal strips that slides in and out of the plastic bracket for size adjustment is the root of the problem. Whenever you proceed to wear the headphones, the end of the metal strip digs into the bracket from the inside. So after a few months of use the adjustment strip has completely popped out of its casing on both sides. These have cracked into two where the metal meets plastic. Now until the service department responds, I get by using the all-American all-purpose fix - duct tape.
Wiring (2)
This is another gripe I have with the design. There are two wires (one for each earphone) that go down your neck. Whenever I temporarily take off the headphones and hang them around my neck, it's almost crazy to take them off in a hurry. The wires get tangled up and I once almost choked myself (judging from how long these things are on my head, that is quite possible) The right way to do this is to wrap the wire from the left earphone through the overhead assembly and have a single wire go out of the right earphone to the connection jack.
Extras (8)
Nice case. Long extension cord.
Service (10)
Never got a chance to come back and update this section. I took the broken set back to the Bose outlet and the promptly replaced it with a new one. Also they will reset the warranty which means you'll get one more year of assurance. This offsets most of the bad design with just an annual trip to the store.
Update - June 2007
Finally looks like Bose came to its senses and reinforced the flimsy adjustment mechanism. You can now see visibly thicker plastic around the metal slider. So far the the third pair has withstood the test of time. However my peeve with the bad wiring (one out of each ear piece) never got addressed so I took matter into my own hands. It's not elegant but it works - I wrapped one of the wires around and over the bridge and tied it to the left ear piece. Ahh! Finally i no longer choke myself with the wires entangled around my neck while taking the headphones off. Email me if you want to know how to go about this messy but very satisfying fix.
I'm now holding bits and pieces of the flimsily designed Bose headphones. Now the last thing want to do here is make a sweeping statement and destroy this review so let me break this down.
Sound Quality (9.6)
Since sound is what it's all about I want to comment on a few different aspects of it.
Reproduction (9.8)
Simply put these headphones are very true to the recording. If you play badly encoded mp3s it will faithfully reproduce the glitches. On some tracks I could hear the background noise which I could not hear with any of my older headphones. These headphones do not make an attempt to alter the original sound and the amount of detail you begin to hear is quite evident.
Frequency Response (9)
The response for high to mid-range frequencies is excellent and very crisp. For the boom box buffs who have two sub-woofers behind their rear seat, the base on these headphones may not be satisfactory. I find the base to be just right for most of my listening needs. However this is only an artifact of playing media straight from your sound card or IPod without modification. An equalizer (software or hardware) can greatly enhance the low notes.
Surround Effects (10)
Watching a DVD with the headphones creates quite an impressive effect. While listening to THX or Dolby tracks once again the audio detail that can be heard creates a significant effect. This effect of immersion is also partly due to how well the headphones fit around the ear and block external noises. More on that in the following section.
I could write about how the multiple speaker ports make a difference but you can read the technical details straight from any Bose retailer site.
Comfort (10)
I used to be under the impression that the most comfortable headphones would have to be huge and bulky which look like you're about to fly a 747. The Triports have proven that this doesn't have be the case. Every headphone I've owned in the past would stay on my head (or in my ear) for at most an hour or two. Regardless of whether if they were over-the-ear or in-the-ear type some form of pain would start to set in after the initial hour of listening. The over-the-ear types would invariably crush my earlobes (and no I don't have large floppy ears).
Bose has designed well around this problem without losing portability. The earcup is probably the single most important invention that differentiates Bose from most other brands. The ear cushion material feels like leather, very supple and just about 0.6 of an inch in thickness. This allows for the cushion to encircle the entire ear. Inside the cup's casing the speaker screen is placed at an angle which creates a perfect cavity where the pinna sits. This solves all the problems at one go. (1) You get excellent insulation from external sounds (even without noise cancellation). (2) The effect of immersion is greatly enhanced. (3) Since nothing is really messing with parts of the ear, you can keep the headphones on for long periods of time. For example I keep these on an average of 6 hours a day. The longest I've gone without taking these off was 13 hours! After a while even if no music is playing I tend to forget that I have them on.
Durability & Construction (5.5)
This is where the ball drops. The area where Bose fails miserably is in the design of the parts that sustain most wear and tear.
Earcup Design (10)
Swivel Earphones (8)
Each earphone is hinged such that it can twist in the range of 20 degrees. This allows for a pretty good fit for all head shapes. On the QuietComfort version the cups twist all the way down for easy storage. The minor problem here is that the hinge is very squeaky when you fidget with the headphones while you have them on. I'm almost compelled to drop in some WD40 into the joint.
Size Adjustment Assembly (2)
The metal strips that slides in and out of the plastic bracket for size adjustment is the root of the problem. Whenever you proceed to wear the headphones, the end of the metal strip digs into the bracket from the inside. So after a few months of use the adjustment strip has completely popped out of its casing on both sides. These have cracked into two where the metal meets plastic. Now until the service department responds, I get by using the all-American all-purpose fix - duct tape.
Wiring (2)
This is another gripe I have with the design. There are two wires (one for each earphone) that go down your neck. Whenever I temporarily take off the headphones and hang them around my neck, it's almost crazy to take them off in a hurry. The wires get tangled up and I once almost choked myself (judging from how long these things are on my head, that is quite possible) The right way to do this is to wrap the wire from the left earphone through the overhead assembly and have a single wire go out of the right earphone to the connection jack.
Extras (8)
Nice case. Long extension cord.
Service (10)
Never got a chance to come back and update this section. I took the broken set back to the Bose outlet and the promptly replaced it with a new one. Also they will reset the warranty which means you'll get one more year of assurance. This offsets most of the bad design with just an annual trip to the store.
Update - June 2007
Finally looks like Bose came to its senses and reinforced the flimsy adjustment mechanism. You can now see visibly thicker plastic around the metal slider. So far the the third pair has withstood the test of time. However my peeve with the bad wiring (one out of each ear piece) never got addressed so I took matter into my own hands. It's not elegant but it works - I wrapped one of the wires around and over the bridge and tied it to the left ear piece. Ahh! Finally i no longer choke myself with the wires entangled around my neck while taking the headphones off. Email me if you want to know how to go about this messy but very satisfying fix.
