12 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
HORRID!
Date of Review: Apr 24, 2001
The Bottom Line: Koss The Plug delivers the most boom - not bang - for the buck. Period. Run - don't walk - away from this product!
A salesperson at Best Buy persuaded me to try Koss The Plugs. At first I was moderately satisfied, but the novelty quickly wore off. The Sony MDR-EX70LP is a much better choice. Much better.
The Plug produces lots of bass. But the quality of the bass is very unmusical - probably due to the severely overblown bass. The mids are woolly; the highs are almost nonexistent - and whatever highs that the Plugs did produce sound sandy. Imagine that you're listening to a pair of Grado SR-60's on a mid-fi receiver, and then someone suddenly turns up your receiver's bass control all the way to "max" and then he turns your receiver's treble contron all the way to "min". This is exactly how the Koss Plugs sound! I judge them unacceptable for portable use because most personal stereo devices either have no treble boost at all or a treble boost that also boosts the bass when used, and have no bass cut at all.
The Plugs are a bit less comfortable than the Sony MDR-EX70LP's - the long plastic tube that "shoots" sound into the ear canal tends to scrape the inside of the ear canal as the Plugs are being inserted. And the foam sleeves that seal the ear canal from outside noises either expand too quickly or (in the case of my particular sample) too slowly, making a proper seal finicky. And the Mute button is poorly designed - the user must keep the button depressed, and it all too often gets in the way during a workout; I found out that all too often I hit the Mute button inadvertently when all I was trying to do is ride a recumbent exercise bike.
