Great sound for a great price.

UPDATE: I am rewriting my previous review since it was lousy. I hope the new version is more helpful. :-)


History:

- In use for two years
- Used with Sony and Aiwa mini-systems, a Sony minidisc player, an Apple PowerMac G4, an Apple iBook/500 and an Apple 3G iPod

Pros:

The Koss R/80 headphones are designed to enclose your ears and shut you out from the outside world, to give the best listening experience. As a result, 99% of the sound the headphones produce go straight into your ears. If you want to hear outside noise, these are not for you.

The R/80s are very comfortable to wear. The headband is adjustable to fit a small adult head to a pretty large one. The earcups are soft; they are made of foam and covered in a thin fake leather material. They are therefore pretty sturdy, and easy to clean.

The cord enters at a single point on the left speaker, but is not hard-wired into the set. Instead, they plug in with a connector that looks very much like a phone cord. I don't know why they did this, I guess so you could replace the cord if it's damaged. I have yet to find replacement cords in any retail store, however. The cord is a 1/8" plug, but comes with a 1/4" adapter.

As I mentioned in my rev. A review, I am not a serious audiophile. However, these are by far the best headphones I've ever heard, let alone owned. They beat out all the other models available at Radio Shack at the time in both sound quality AND comfort. According to Koss' website, the specs alone place these phones in the top 40% of what they offer. In fact, they seem to have the best frequency range of the headphones offered in the less than 0.03 dB noise range. That would place them in the "more than adequate for the average joe" range, and even into the "budding audiophile" range.

But how do they really sound? First off, they can get louder than I could comfortably listen to them. My sister even mistakenly used them as normal speakers, not realizing the headphones were plugged in to my amp (long story). Given the right amplifier (ie. not a portable device), the bass is pretty good. Music with a driving beat sounds awesome, and movies with explosions and car chases and such sound decent too, although they can't match a subwoofer for bass. The treble is nice and clear, I can pick up sounds in some electronic music that I have that I couldn't hear with other headphones. In the mid range, the sound is also very clear without any real emphasis on any frequency(ies) that I could detect.

I would consider it safe to buy these phones online (ie. without listening to them first) if you think these phones would suit your needs. However, if you consider yourself a greater audiophile than this, I would recommend trying these out before you buy them. Not because they are bad, but simply because I consider headphones to be a personal item that needs to be paired with the user. Is that weird? You decide.

Happy listening!