Koss "The Plug" & Possible Allergic Reaction

I have a love-hate relationship with these earbuds. I love the sound, I love the way they block out outside noise, I love how small they are. I love them from a technological point of view. Make sure you use these things with some sort of EQ, if you don't have any way of adjusting the bass response, it will overwhelm you in the lower mid range. Also helps if you can ramp up the high trebles a bit. With a little modification on the sound output, they're excellent. They're as durable as can be expected, eventually after wrapping them around things and getting them tangled a few thousand times the wire sheathings start to break down. A little dab of silicone over the exposed wire fixes that. There is fiberglass interwoven with the wiring, so they're strong enough to get by a little tugging and yanking. I've washed these (accidentally) in the laundry, dropped them in sand at the beach, and stepped on them a few times, and my original pair still functions. I bought extra pairs because I misplace them a lot. And they're only around $13 average (they were actually $6 when they first came out) so it's not a big deal to replace them.

I was using these at the gym with an IRiver IFP390T Mp3/WMA player, and other places with a SONY CD/Mp3 Discman, and I was very very happy with them. For a while.

So here's the downside. After owning my two original pairs, I realized these things were the cause of a terrible rash I had developing inside my ear. Eventually the plugs caused notable pain the instant I inserted them, leading me to the conclusion they were at fault. When I stopped using the plugs for a month, the rash was gone. But I still had an earwax buildup for almost a year afterward, which also cleared. SO, as a test, I started using them again, and within a few weeks I was once again suffering stinging pains inside my ears, wax buildup, and a noticeable red rash.

Whatever the black foam is made of, it is causing an allergic reaction. The rash was visible in some photos taken of me, and at one point my ear itself had turned red outside the canal. There are no warnings on the package of any possible reactions, and the package doesn't indicate what the foam is.

Great idea, but some of us can't use them, and I mean we CAN'T use them. There's a potential here for someone to go into anaphylactic shock if they have a latex (?) allergy and use these headphones. Does KOSS have any idea? These things should have a warning on the package.

My solution in the end was to head out to Wal*Mart and get some standard compressible foam earplugs, the bright orange/yellow ones sold for construction workers to use in noise reduction around heavy machinery. They sell these at concerts too, and we use them all the time in live sound reproduction. I just started getting these, burning a little core out with a soldering iron and a very narrow tip, and slipping them on instead of the Koss supplied black foams. Works pretty well. Whatever that black stuff is, it really sucks for me. So be warned.

(Look up "Koss Plug" in the search for another set of reviews on the version without the mute button, which is otherwise identical)