 "Great sound for the $" | 2009-11-04 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2DLJJZY670F0S |
| Very rich sound in a very inexpensive package. Almost as nice as the $100 headphones I have at work. Will order a 2nd (my daughter will want to take these when she starts college next year). |
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 "One of the very best at this price point" | 2009-11-01 |
| - Reviewed By User: A19TAB9NLAVPPK |
| Sounds good enough, even to a discreet audiophile - at this price point. I use it to listen to itunes on my laptop and it sounds far better than the laptop speakers. It sounds especially decent when listening to jazz, classical music and ballads. DJ/Dance Hall music and the like sounds good too but would sound even better with more bass. The head phones are a very good all rounder. Go ahead and get it if you are on a budget. |
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| "If you don't need noise-cancelling, get them NOW." | 2009-10-31 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1VNAK9UJI4TJD |
Toss those white-plastic Apple earbuds. Do it now. Yes, really. I mean it. Make no mistake, behind the PortaPro's 80's styling and intended use with Sony Walkman CASSETTE(!) players, these headphones have just about the best sound you can hope for for the money. These are NOT noise-canceling and will allow a decent amount of environmental noise through, but I liked that because it lets me keep aware of what' going on around me. Little to no distortion at higher volumes than I would normally listen to. Sound is crystal clear; non-audiophiles with a good ear will be able to tell a dramatic improvement over almost anything else they've used in the same price-range, especially over Apple earbuds (which aren't at all bad for included earbuds IMHO). Bass is powerful-almost overwhelmingly so, but there is so much dimension in the low range that some songs sound different. Highs were a little shrill at first, but calmed down with use. Mid-range was a bit stiff out of the box but has since opened right up. I'm hearing lyrics I've never heard before, and background instruments I've never been able to distinguish before, as well as background vocals and other interesting elements like you hear in Beatles songs that I had never really been able to make out before. They are all-around comfortable (I usually have the ComfortZone sliders set to Light) and very light-weight. They may look and feel a bit cheap and flimsy, but they are in fact pretty durable. Hair getting caught in the adjustable metal band has never been a problem like it is with other cheap metal-band headphones. Included "case" is useless, don't bother with it. They fit around my neck fairly comfortably with the headband fully extended. Cord is a good length to reach your pocket with slack to spare. Open-can design allows for clearer highs and mids than closed-can designs like Skull Candies. No expensive, electronic noise-cancelling like steeply overpriced Bose headphones to muddy up the audio signal. Just simple, clean, honest sound.
Word of advice to iPod users especially: I found the best balanced sound by setting the auto-equalizer to "bass reducer". I'm usually one to leave the equalizer completely neutral, and for iPod earbuds this provides the best balance; but the PortaPros have a lot of low-end kick.
Also, if you want the best sound quality as soon as possible, plug 'em in to your computer at a slightly-higher-than-normal-listening volume and set iTunes (or whatever you use) to shuffle through your entire library continuously for two or three days whenever you're not using them (it's perfectly OK to use them at any point during that time if you want). Break-in is real, people, and just like a brand-new baseball glove, the diaphragm of the speakers needs to loosen up a bit before reaching it's best sound response. Or, if you really want to put them through their paces to whip them into shape in just two days or so and be sure they've opened up almost as much as they're going to, Google "burn-in waves." The first site has a bunch of sound files meant to exercise headphones and break them in. Just be warned that they may start to sound a little worse before they start to sound better. But when they open up, these babies sing. (If you want to give yourself chills, the beginning of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is a good place to start) |
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| "I heard things I didn't even know were there in songs I have heard dozens of times." | 2009-10-29 |
| - Reviewed By User: A16NIEI5K9NB8B |
For one, the bass on these headphones is absolutely phenomenal. As are the highs. And they can be ear shatteringly loud if that floats your boat, which happens to be a sea I take my yacht in frequently. The wider frequency response allowed by the magnetic strength of neodymium is not just a meaningless spec booster meant to make the product artificially more appealing. It is certainly true that human hearing does not range down to 15Hz or up to 25kHz, but it would sort of follow that if they can do 15Hz, then they will do 30Hz very well, and if they can do 25kHz, then they will do 16kHz very well. And those are frequencies that are within hearing range, well, at least the bass. And you can definitely hear that bass.
I am hearing bass lines that I thought were mixed in too low to hear in general. Do you know how that feels when all of sudden you hear a new instrument in a song you've listened to dozens of times? It is absolutely glorious. You fall in love with the song all over again.
Also, the stereo separation on these, for whatever reason, lets you distinguish between parts in the music like a beast. Again, falling in love all over again.
This effect is so dramatic that when you get these(which please for all things holy do so as there are no better headphones for this price, perhaps equally good, but not better, no way), go back and listen to some of your lesser liked albums from your favorite artists, usually the newer ones as it seems to go. You will understand why they released it "even though it was a terrible album". It's probably because as bands get more prestige and the resultant giga-money, they can afford better and better production quality, which lets them add in things that a typical car stereo just cannot reproduce noticeably.
They leak sound. Meh. That's obvious. They're on ear. lol
Excellent buy. HIGHLY RECOMMEND. |
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| "Awesome sound, kind of painful" | 2009-10-17 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2P70HW7PTRBE6 |
OK first of all, these sound spectacular. I don't really need to reiterate that since everyone else here says the same thing. The bass is a bit overpowering at first, but a quick EQ adjustment fixes that; it's not that the highs and mids are muffled (they sound great), they're just a bit overwhelmed by the bass. As soon as you turn that down a bit the sound is incredible.
Unfortunately, as great as the sound is I ended up having to return these for two reasons: First, they leak sound, and a lot of it. This may or may not be a problem for you, but I live in an apartment and my roommate could hear the treble half of everything I played, which was obviously extremely annoying. It's not surprising; after all Koss started making these things in the mid 80's when headphones weren't expected to block sound. Just something to be aware of if you listen with other people nearby.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, after a couple hours they become downright painful to wear. Again, they were made in the 80's when the on-ear design was totally standard, but having a couple speakers clamped onto the surfaces of your ears (rather than fitting AROUND the ears like bigger sets) is going to become painful no matter how soft the foam is. They actually have pads so that they rest primarily on your temples, which makes them much more comfortable than most other 80's-style headphones, but even with that after three hours or so they simply became too painful to wear any longer.
Some people have also complained about the overzealous hairband snagging hair when you put them on or take them off, but I actually didn't have any trouble with that.
So basically, if you don't mind sound leakage and you don't intend to wear them for more than 2-3 hours at a time, these are an incredibly high-quality set of headphones, especially given the price. However, if these things matter to you don't buy them and end up having to return them like i did. |
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