6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Flawed product
Date of Review: Feb 21, 2003
The Bottom Line: Interesting design, but a flawed product. Hopefully Koss fixed it in the new plug
First of all, I understand that Koss has updated 'The Plug' so this review applies only to the older version.
I got these headphones hoping for a cheap portable set with decent sound. They almost provided this, although in the end they were a poor choice.
First, the sound- it is bass heavy, not spectacularly bad but not good either. Better than those that come with portable audio units but definitely belowaverage in general. The bass is just too boomy (non-tonal) and there aren't any real saving graces about the sound.
The isolation- Very good. Best thing about these really. You could wear these in a noisy environment and (if you had them in your ears right) you would mostly hear your music.
The Plug came with an assortment of foam inserts that can be put around the plastic tube that focuses the sound down your eardrum. Unfortunately, only 1 kind of these inserts worked at all for me, and they wore out pretty quickly.
Worst of all, the plastic tubes that are supposed to go down your ears were not molded well, and had sharp edges. You don't want to put that down your eardrum! When the foam pieces wore out this became obvious and I threw them away as I felt they were dangerous to use.
Getting these in and out of your ears is a pain (especially for talking to someone for a second, since they make you deaf to the outside world)
You have to put them into your ears a special way, to get a seal with your eardrum, otherwise they dont sound right.
Another problem is the 'microphonic effect'. Basically if the cord bumps into you or gets tugged on, you hear it LOUD. This is especially unfortunate because it makes these bad for active use, which is the one place where they could have shined. (Blocking out noise from a gym)
