Bose TriPort Consumer Headphones

Not to start out totally negative, but I was underwhelmed with these when I first heard them, and my opinion hasn't changed much since then. Unlike most Bose products, these have shown up everywhere, which makes sense for something like headphones. I first listened to them at a stereo shop in New England, and thought "wow, these really aren't very good". But I chalked it up to the display, since usually, a bunch of headphones are fed off of a single CD player or some nonsense. And even the Sennheisers didn't sound as good as I've known them to be.

But then a friend of mine bought a pair, since he is a Bose fan, and figured that even though he had not actually listened to them, that because they had the Bose name, they would be good. Well, I'm not sure he's ready to admit that they didn't live up to his expectations, but I am, on the other hand, still very underwhelmed. My friend has a nice stereo system (Onkyo, Denon, etc.) and his receiver has a headphone output.

After he told me he got them, I went over for some music listening with a stack of familiar CDs, including Donald Fagan "Kamakiriad", Patricia Barber "Modern Cool", some Jazz stuff like Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" (The most recently re-mastered one, not the low-fi early CD), and a few other things. One by one, I put the CDs in and listened over the Bose TriPort headphones. Wow, the sound really wasn't that good. I borrowed my brother's Sennheiser HD497, which are like 1/2 the price of the Bose, and they were, to my ears, far better-sounding. More clear in the bass (the Bose sound really muddy on the bottom), nice midrange (the Bose seemed fuzzy) and clear highs (the Bose actually sounded kind of distorted on vocal "sss" sounds, and cymbals). And these are CDs with really excellent sound, so I know it's not the source material.

The one good thing about the Bose: they get loud very easily. But why would you want loud sound if it isn't clean and punchy? I sure don't.