My only regret is that I didn't buy these earphones earlier. I had reasons for hesitating: $250 is a lot to take a gamble on something that didn't really have any informative customer reviews online, and as an EDM guy I was concerned about the bass rolloff at 40hz. Massdrop solved the first problem for me by dropping them at $99, and it turns out the second was never a problem to begin with.

(KDE stands for Koss Dual Element [referring to the two dynamic drivers per ear. That makes the full official name the Koss Koss Dual Element 250...Per Koss: "The larger 20 mm transducer is low frequency dominant and ported, while the 13 mm transducer focuses on mid and upper frequencies in a side-firing angle."]).

I think a lot of potential buyers could be put off by the unusual design, and by looking at it I can't blame you for thinking "that can't be comfortable," or "there's no way that will stay on my ears without having to adjust it every two minutes." Everyone's ears are different so these may well be issues for you. For me though, I've been surprised at how comfortable and stable they are. They'll stay in place better than most earbuds for me; it's just not something I've needed to worry about. (The exception is if you lean your head sideways, ear facing your shoulder. They won't fall to the floor, the earhook will catch them, but that one specific angle is their sole weakness.)


SOUND QUALITY

"That's great, but how do they sound," you ask?

If you take the general sound signature of the PortaPro and refine it, fixing the PP's limitations and compromises, bringing detail and clarity up to impressive levels, you would have the KDE250. I can't decide if this is the best mid-fi earphone ever made, or a respectably average TOTL 'phone.

The highs and mids are excellent (the relative levels are close enough to flat, everything is smooth up and down the spectrum), but for me the bass is the star of the show. It turns out hardly any music ever has anything below 50 or 60 hz, not even electronic dance music. I do occasionally come across a track that has meaningful elements lower than the Koss can reproduce and I can tell something is missing, but it's not often at all. Some months I don't come across any. I feel silly for ever having doubted.

I've never come across an IEM that can thump like the KDE250, the bass is powerful, clean (doesn't impede the mids whatsoever), and reproduces more texture and low end detail than any dynamic driver I've heard (I'm a planar magnetic guy through and through, but the dual dynamic system Koss designed doesn't give up anything to my preferred tech).

The KDE250 does have weaknesses, of course. The soundstage is unusual; when I haven't listened to it for awhile, it sounds okay to the sides and in the front, but it has almost no vertical element at all. This sensation does go away as my ears adjust to it. It's not anything I'd call a problem, as much as an idiosyncrasy. I'd classify it as an "open" earphone, but it's much more isolating than most open earphones or earbuds. That can be good or bad, depending on your needs. Personally I prefer open earphones 90% of the time; I hate going out in public when I can't hear my surroundings at all. Like most earphones, no matter how loud you crank it, there's just not enough sound for someone else to ever hear, no matter how uncomfortably close they might be.

The KDE is also rather fragile, my first pair broke after being pulled off and falling 6 feet to a hardwood floor. Koss really ought to have included a strong shirt clip, which would have saved them. They did replace them with a new pair within a week though, thanks to their famous lifetime warranty.


COMPARISONS

Vs. Audeze iSine 20-

I'll be clear up front here: the iSine 20 is the better sounding earphone. It's better in almost every way, and I don't think anyone is going to be confused about this. And it SHOULD sound better, it costs 4-5x as much as the Koss! But is the iSine in a different league? I'd say no. I judge (with EDM playing) the Koss to get you fully 90% of the way to the iSine; their sound signatures are very similar. If you can afford it, get the Audeze and never look back. If bang for your buck is your chief concern, get the Koss and spend your savings on lottery tickets or something, whatever, why should I care?

One important difference between the two is that the Audeze is very unforgiving of a poor source. It's wasted on 128kbps mp3s, and it makes my LG V20 sound just BAD. It makes all of the smartphone's flaws stand out as glaringly obvious. The Koss, on the other hand, is extremely forgiving of less than perfect sources. It sounds good enough jacked to my phone for me to be able to focus on the music, instead of the clinical sound quality, yet it still scales up well when paired with a quality desktop rig (mine is a Schiit Magni 3/Momby).

Vs. Sennheiser MX985-

This is a much more even comparison. They're both on about the same level in terms of quality, they just do it in different ways. I've always thought of the MX' as a cross between the HD600 and HD800; it's got a lot of the former's warmth, and some of the latter's clarity-detail. The 985's biggest weakness is its lack of bass punch, which happens to be the 250's strength. The two couldn't be more different, but they complement each other nicely.

Vs. Blue Demun-

I very much like the Blue Demun, but the Koss is an entire tier higher up. Not a useful comparison. Trying to compare it with a VE Monk+ would be twice as silly.


CONCLUSION/DENOUEMENT

I personally made the decision to live with the (very small, very inoffensive) limitations of the KDE250, and I'm selling my iSines to use the cost difference elsewhere in life. But there is no wrong answer here, if you have a KDE250 -OR- an iSine 20, you have an excellent sounding pair of earphones, and I'm confident you will enjoy them!

The Hifiman HM-601 is my favorite portable player for the following reasons:

*Sound quality--it has a warm, smooth, very musical, very analog sound. Detail and clarity are good, but this isn't the best player to listen to an audiobook, perhaps. Instead it's geared for music, and it's extremely good at it.

There is an effective 5 band eq if you want it.

*Soundstage--it's the only player I have with a soundstage that rivals my best desktop amps. It's very satisfying in this regard.
*Power--this player has enough power to drive full-size dynamic cans with as much power and authority as you could want. My Q701 is my favorite pairing, to take advantage of that soundstage. My 250 ohm DT880 also sounds excellent. The 601 does not power my full size planars very well (HE400, LCD2, Alpha Prime), but that problem is easily solved by using the line out with another amp. It does fine powering the Sine on its own.

There are no major downsides, but there are a couple less than perfect issues. The UI is completely non-intuitive, but it does have its own logic to it, so you will be able to learn to accommodate it without too much suffering. There IS a Rockbox port for the 601 (but not most 601 slim models). The install (and especially extraction) processes are more involved than most, so be aware of that.

It doesn't seem able to play a 24-bit wav file, though 16 bit is fine.

It doesn't pair well as a source for my Stax Lambda Pro electrostatics, in my current opinion. I thought it did at first, but it's lack of detail becomes apparent to me now. That is a unique situation, because it sounds great using it as a source through my desktop amp with just about every other pair of cans I have.

In all it's somewhat of a bare-bones player, with no digital in or out or other fancy features, but it plays beautiful, beautiful, music, and that's why I use it more than any other.

Note: this review is for a Stax Lambda Pro. I'm not certain each review is for the same model here :/

This headphone (along with a Stax SRM-727a amp) is the finest audio experience of my life. If you're used to dynamic drivers, it'll be a shock the first time you hear what music is supposed to sound like. There is ZERO muddiness anywhere in the spectrum. Every frequency is reproduced cleanly and separately from the others. Voices and instruments sound so realistic, in unfamiliar music I'll often think someone is in the room with me, before realizing it's just the recording. Most concert venues don't sound half as clear.

If the sound balance right out of the box isn't what you're looking for, not to worry, they respond perfectly to an EQ, and will take on whatever sound signature you desire, at whatever volume (these sound just as good quiet or ear-bleedingly loud). Personally I like boosting 200hz ane below by 4db or so.

Most everyone talks about the mids or the highs, which are indeed world-class, and sharper and crisper even than any planar magnetic driver can manage. But for me (an EDM & hip-hop listener) the bass was the real revelation. Where even the best dynamic speakers produce a deep indistinct boominess, these can articulate the bass exactly, and you can suddenly tell the difference between a 20hz and a 22hz tone.

Even the sennheiser HD800 sounds slow and artificial sounding compared to the Stax. I haven't heard other electrostatic headphone systems (be it other Stax models, the Koss ESP950, or the absurd $10,000 Sennheiser HE50), but no dynamic, no planar magnetic driver can come close to doing what this Stax electrostat can.

Obviously your source matters, but even streaming soundcloud from the headphone jack on my phone sounds phenomenal through these. Using a hi-fi DAC such as the Mojo or GOV2+ is even better of course, but the gap between my phone (an LG V10 with a relatively great DAC to begin with) and those hi-fi dacs isn't nearly as great as the gap sounds when using regular headphones. I prefer a DAC that gives a lot of body to the music, such as the Hifiman HM601. Using a bright DAC might not be the best pairing.

While the astounding sound quality is the most important thing, I'd like to say a few words about build quality and comfort. The build quality is nothing special, they seem to be made of a cheap plastic, but I've learned that a cheap feel does not mean it's actually flimsy, but I baby mine anyway just in case. As these are the least portable headphone type on the market, that's not much of an issue. They will never leave the room where their amp is set up.

Comfort-wise, they are exceptionally comfortable. They weigh very little, and exert almost no clamping force on your head, but somehow they never slip off while you're wearing them either. The main issue related to comfort is the fact that they rely on static electricity to produce sound, and bumping your hand to the outside of the case can cause a quick grounding on that side, and you will only hear through the opposite side for a minute while it builds up a sufficient charge again. It's a minor issue that's inherent to the technology.

IN CONCLUSION, these are the best headphones I have ever heard, they put most $1,500 pairs to shame (ahem HD800 ahem), and if you know how to EQ for yourself, there is no reason you wouldn't be blown away too.

The LH Labs Geek Out V2+ is a DAC/amp without compare. And for that we can be thankful.

It will tantalize you with fantastic sound quality one minute, it will leave you in tears and your headphone drivers in shreds the next.

How great is the sound quality? The Chord Mojo is better, but only just. If you like music driven by the bass, the GOV2+ might even eke out a win over the Mojo, which is no slouch in the bass department itself.

It it worth putting up with everything else about it? That's for you to decide.

(DISCLAIMER: I wasn't around for the infamous LH Labs indiegogo debacle, I've never heard their Verb, so I have no particular bone to pick with them. This review is based on my experience with the unit being reviewed, which I paid for in full out of my own pocket)

Build and Design

The physical design isn't so unreasonable. The form factor stacks well with a smartphone or DAP, there are two micro USB ports (one for data, one for charging the battery) and two 3.5mm headphone jacks, one TRS single ended one TRRS balanced. A red rubber plug comes preinstalled in the balanced out to keep you from using the wrong one by mistake. Using a standard 2.5mm jack might have been a more elegant solution, but it's hardly worth complaining. To their credit, they use the correct TRRS format (from tip to sleeve L+, R+, L-, R-); a headphone hardwired this way needs only a simple adapter for full single ended compatability. Next to the power switch are the only two buttons, one toggling between filter modes, one toggling between low and high gain. The problems are with the implementation.

My dad once shared an anecdote with me: he was borrowing his parents' car, an American Motors Rambler, when the gas tank fell off, and dragged across the pavement, creating sparks the entire way. THE GAS TANK. SPARKING ALONG THE GROUND. Turns out it was held on with only a single steel tie, which failed.

The GOV2+ may not be quite so life threatening when it fails, but it's no less frustrating. The most positive thing I can say about the build is when something breaks it breaks slowly, working intermittently at first, which gives you plenty of time to shop for replacement parts.

My unit is enclosed in a 3D-printed case of the kind you might expect to find as a prize in a children's cereal box. It's held together by double sided tape, which thankfully comes loose via heat gun. I know because when the rickety power switch began to fail, I had to pull it apart to install a much superior replacement switch from Radio Shack, which I superglued to the outside of the case. After that, the balanced 3.5mm TRRS socket has stopped making a connection with the plug; I am still working on a fix. It apparently isn't as simple as soldering in a replacement via 4 wire leads.

(I say "my unit" because to be fair, LH Labs shipped later units with a better case that I've heard is better. They even offered a free upgrade for anyone with a printed case, but getting it requires shipping it in to them, a condition I consider unacceptable because the turnaround time is measured in years. That's assuming it's ever "turned around"; some users have reported waiting 5 or 6 months so far, without even being able to contact the company to check on their status. They may NEVER get their unit back. When I opened a ticket on the LH website (you cannot email them directly), the page promises a reply in 24 hours. After a week I opened a second ticket asking for service for the first one. Several days later, I received a form letter saying they were using the Thanksgiving weekend to catch up on their return request backlog. I received the same email two or three more times that week. It's now nearly Christmas, and I've yet to hear anything else from them. It's safe to say their customer support is nonexistent)

In the promotional documentation (more often called the owner's manual), LH makes a big deal about making a deliberate choice not to have any relays or capacitors on the output of their class A amp, for the greatest possible sound quality. However, this is an area where they really should have compromised a bit. As a result of their proud decision, there is a massive DC flux to the headphones every time it's powered off. Because it's a portable DAC with only micro USB connectivity, every time the USB cable gets jiggled an iota is effectively a "power off." So in practice, this happens unexpectedly all the time, meaning there is literally no possible way to protect your headphones from the DC spike, short of not using the unit; you will blow out full sized headphones, using earphones is flat out suicide. Even with high impedance headphones that won't necessarily be destroyed, the DC punch can still be painful to your ears. I have trouble crediting the notion that the engineers at LH couldn't design some way of protecting your headphones with only a minimal impact on sound quality, if the impact was audible to begin with. Plain and simple, this is an irresponsible design that demonstrates either laziness, carelessness, or contempt for their customers. You can decide which.

Sound Quality

We head-fi audiophiles will go through a lot to chase that ideal sound, but what could possibly be worth putting up with the issues discussed above?

When it's working, the sound is sublime. Punchy and powerful, detailed yet musical, just the right amount of warmth over a black hole background, the sound gets an A grade. And that's just the single ended output. The output impedance is a fraction of an ohm, which makes it such a shame it's so dangerous to use sensitive IEMs. The balanced out takes everything to the next higher level, and provides enough power to drive almost any pair of cans out there. I retermimated my only HD800 cable to be compatible with the balanced jack, and I've never heard them sound better. The highs are never sibilant, the lows are an encounter with a freight train during an earthquake, yet remain balanced, never seeming overemphasized compared to the rest of the spectrum. And the texture...I'm sure the mids and highs are great too in this regard, I'll focus on them to confirm sometime, I promise, just as soon as I'm finished focusing on the bass. Tomorrow, maybe.

The GOV2+ has a special synergy with certain headphones. The aforementioned Sennheiser HD800 is musically transcendant on the balanced plug, as is the suddenly wonderous Audio Technica M50, which became utterly transparent, surpassing even my favorite closed can, the PSB M4U 1. It's cosmically unfair that the M4U 1s aren't easily compatable with a balanced system without serious modification that would compromise their usefulness for regular operation. The same goes for the Klipsch Status, another personal favorite that I imagine could be ascended to legendary heights, if only I could balance them.

Conclusion

Yes, the Chord Mojo is undeniably superior to the GOV2+ in sound quality and technical ability, which becomes apparent with a direct AB comparison. It's timing is simply unmatched by anything I've heard, and probably by anything at all. But it doesn't inspire the same emotions that the GO does. The Mojo often leaves me wishing for more bass impact, for example. Though it is technically superior, when you're listening to the GOV2+ it's close enough not to matter. The Geek Out has that quality of musicality that's almost ineffable; it's something you viscerally miss when you don't have it, in a way that the Mojo doesn't match. To my ears and brain, at least. Personified the Mojo is a college educated, witty, and beautiful blonde olympic athlete that we should all look to marry. The Geek Out V2+, on the other hand, is the wild miniskirt wearing girl you met at the club; you might spend a fortune buying her drinks before she talks you into getting a baggie of coke, and if you've any cash left in your wallet she's likely to steal that too, but she'll also give you the wildest night of your life. I love the mojo, but I still fantasize about the Geek Out V2+

Many audiophiles today eschew bluetooth completely. I have never been one of them. There are situations where using a dangly cord can be inconvenient or outright dangerous, and bluetooth was a "good enough for some" solution. Can the Astell & Kern XB10 ("Xtreme" Bluetooth) wireless DAC and headphone amp change this paradigm in any significant way?

About me: 37 years old, and I'll admit to being an audiophile. It comes from a formative experience hearing great DJ music on an exceptionally clean, well balanced 20,000 watt (or thereabouts, claim their ads) soundsystem at those notorious dance parties some of you have heard about. Hearing music so loud it became a physical thing, and realizing that all that mass of sound originated from a single point almost, the tip of the needle on the vinyl turntable was a profound experience.

Remarkably, my hearing hasn't deteriorated nearly as much as I later learned I should expect. I still hear 25hz and possibly below to 17.5khz and possibly higher. Cross your fingers that it continues to last that way!

Build Quality & Functionality: The most surprising thing about the XB10 is its size and weight. It's a wee little thing, about twice the diameter of a US quarter, and is commensurately lightweight. The outside is entirely plastic, but it feels tough enough to handle the relatively low force it would be exposed to if dropped. In practice, every time I've dropped it, it was caught by the headphone cable, and never actually made it as far as the ground. On the back is a removable belt clip, and I attached a strip of velcro underneath. I've found that I don't actually have to remove the clip for the velcro to get a grip with its mate.

The entire top of the unit is a 4-way rocker switch, symmetrical along one axis only. This does not make it significantly easier to operate without looking. The larger half controls volume +/-, one part of the smaller half is pause/play, the other half seemingly nothing. It has a bluetooth symbol and I may have pressed it once to pair it the first time. Track up/down buttons are along the rim, opposite the on/off/hold slider, which is confusingly identical in size and shape. To turn it on or off, you slide the switch one way and hold it there for several seconds, a tricky task, considering that hitting any of the other buttons on accident means you have to start over and try again. It takes a deliberate, conscious effort to hold it in the one awkward way where this is possible.

A rare positive feature of the design is the,decision to add a microphone on the unit, located by the headphone jacks. I don't often like using a microphone on a headset wire for phone calls, but I've found using the XB10 for calls to be convenient and easy, and the mic is apparently high quality (I'm told by everyone who's talked to me).

As a whole though, the controls are inconvenient, awkward to use, yet easy to hit almost any button inadvertently when the unit is in a pocket. Oh, and it can't reliably be operated in a pocket, you have to look at the thing, or else go: "okay, volume up is the direction away from the headphone plug, but was that on the right or left..."

This is the area in which I expect to see the most improvement when the inevitable XB20 comes out. I subtracted one and a half stars for these usability issues; it gained a half star back for everything else.

[A quick word on "wirelessness": while it successfully untethers you from your cellphone, the XB10 still needs a wire going from it to your ears. This can be essentially eliminated with clever use of velcro and a very short interconnect, but that trick is only possible with certain headphones. IEM users have it a little more difficult. I suppose you could velcro it to a hat or something, but I'd sooner just go with headphones. For most uses though, just throwing it in a pocket (with hold engaged!) was sufficient.]

Sound Quality (with apt-X): This is why I put up with the aforementioned inconveniences. The sound quality is, in a word, excellent. I detected no significant roll off at either of the spectrum's extremes, and no hiss with sensitive IEMs like the Ostry KC06a. My current phone is an LG G3, a one-time flagship with laudable sound quality, yet even listening casually at home, I'll often listen through the XB10 because I like it better than my phone's headphone jack. The DAC section is obviously well-implimented, and the amp is impressively powerful. The single ended 3.5mm TRS jack can drive just about any IEM and most easier to drive full size headphones, like the ATH-M50 or PSB M4U 1. Still, most full size cans gain a welcome bit of extra punch and sparkle using the 2.5mm TRRS balanced output. The balanced out is powerful enough to drive even power hungry full size cans like the 250ohm Beyerdynamic DT880 with real authority, quite impressive for such a small unit!

One drawback is a relatively short battery life (a bigger battery would add significant size & weight and would make for a very different product). However, I get around this limitation with an old, cheap external battery (with a built-in microUSB cable) I haven't used since like 3 cellphones ago. It wouldn't get me 33% on my current phone's battery, but it keeps the XB10 going for 10+hours. Another drawback is the cumbersomely wired TRRS. The correct wiring scheme is (from tip to sleeve): L+, R+, L-, R-. This is because a headphone hardwired in this way needs only a simple adapter (shorting pins 3&4) to be compatable with ANY common SE connection. Often a simple extension cable will do it. The strange R-, R+, L+, L- format used here has no advantages over any other random configuration that I can think of. It's A&K being different just to be different, and like so many of the design elements, it comes at the expense of functionality. It's only usable at all for the headphones I've rewired to accept removable dual mono cables, because I built a TRRS cable in the required format. I certainly wouldn't wire any headphones I like this way, leaving them useless for everything else.

Sound Quality (without apt-X): nothing to write home about.

Sound Quality (with apt-X HD): As yet untested, but extremely promising! Transmitting up to 24-bit/48 kHz, Qualcomm claims it's "indistinguishable from high resolution audio." I'm excited that a product that sounds great already might be able to sound even better! Currently the only apt-x HD capable sources are the LG G5 and LG V20, though it should become more common in the coming years.

Summary: Has the old Bluetooth paradigm been changed? Absolutely, yes. Although it has usability problems out the wazoo, the XB10's DAC and amp make it a must-use product anyway. It doesn't solve every problem.,and it will be more useful for some than for others, but if it's strengths line up with your needs, it's a fantastic product that I'm not even fully utilizing yet. If you can wait a year or two for the XB20, that's sure to fix a a lot of annoyances (right, A&K?), but the XB10 is still loads of fun to listen to already. I didn't get a free review copy, this review is based on a unit I purchased shortly after it was released.

Coming soon: pictures

Walk into any Target,store, anywhere, and head to Electronics. Hidden among the low-end Sonys and Skullcandys, overshadowed by the $198 Jaybirds and sprawling areas dedicated to Bose or Beats by Dre (who even knows what they charge for those things), is a little IEM from Philips marketed with the words "Rich Bass." They might easily be confused with the similar looking "Beats n' Bass" packaging. The latter are the lower-end SHE3595, which are widely acclaimed for their price/performance, but to me have several glaring flaws in the sound (most notably the dry, sibalant treble), preventing them from wearing the Giant Killer mantle. Rich Bass, a.k.a. Philips SHE3905, while not a different animal altogether, is different enough. More on that later.

Pricing and Availability
$20 at any Target store, $10 shipped on amazon (not Prime though)

Build, Ergonomics, Comfort, Style

They aren't the toughest, most substantial in-ears, but they're tough enough as long as you don't step on them with your boots on. YMMV of course, but their small size and light weight equals a supremely comfortable earphone, without being so small they're difficult to get a good seal. In fact they are a breeze to put in and take out of your ears (well my ears anyway). Compare to the Ostry KC06a, another very comfortable earphone deserving of the Giant Killer moniker.

They do look undeniably premium, thanks to the mirrlred metallic finish. They could pass for a poor man's GR8e, i think, in looks as well as sound.

Rolling: tips and sources and synergy

Like most canalphones, I feel the best tips for them are JVC Spiral Dots. If you're not a millionaire and don't have dozens of those, expensive things laying about, try something similar: thin, plyable silicon, with the widest mouth you can find. The stock tips, while feeling a bit cheap, are actually very good, sound-wise. One thing to note is the sound tube isn't cylindrical like most. Instead Philips built them with an elliptical sound hole, with an aspect ratio greater than Klipsch (and without the patented oval tips). In effect, this means they may permanently stretch any tips left on them for enough time. Either store your tips seperately, or accept that they aren't going to be used with anything else anymore.

The 3905s fall in that sweet spot of being easy to drive, without being too easy and inviting hiss or tonal inaccuracies with high output impedance sources. An average smartphone is plenty powerful, but as usual a better sounding source will deliver a much better experience. I've taken them as far up as GOV2+ and Mojo, and these Philips certainly prove they belong in such company. I expect they would continue to improve as you take them higher up the source ladder (like most quality headphones will). I've never heard them sound bad, or at least any worst than a bad source might be expected to sound.

Sound Sig.

Slight v-shape, a lowercase v. They're nothing like as extreme as the M50x Capital-V; the mids are only the slightest bit recessed. Warm, dark, except for when it's bright.

Bass-about in line with the M50x in quantity as well as quality. They have about as much as possible while avoiding bass bleed wrecking the midrange. They accentuate bass, extending as low as 25 or 30hz, but never invent it when it's not in the music. I don't know who or what a "basshead" is, but I can't imagine wanting more on already bass heavy genres like trance or other EDM. It becomes a nonissue for more acoustic, more organic styles like jazz or classical and some rock.

Mids- slightly recessed, but very well rendered, full and rich sounding. Vocals are lush and realistic, off the charts for the price, but it will surprise no-one they won't stand up to the better Shures of the world.

Treble-to be honest, unless I'm listening to a track with a treble emphasis, I don't really notice them as being distinct from the midrange. Obviously this suggests a smooth transition from upper mids on up. Squeezing in more and more hertz by the thousands, there's certain point where the upper mids have been left far behind, in the unmistakably treble zone, notes begin taking on that desirable sparkle. Sibalance is as good as nonexistent.

Misc.--

If these are so great, how come you're the only one lauding them?

That is a very good question. Ultimately, you'll have to ask each individual reviewer. Its not unreasonable to ask if maybe they hadn't heard any true top-end talent to contrast, at the time, or were too influenced by the price tag to believe their ears, so they didn't. Maybe a million reasons. I do not believe I'm overstating their worth, however. I've owned upwards of a half dozen pairs over the last couple of years, because I keep giving my pair to friends and then replacing them, or loaning them to someone who doesn't want to give them back. And each pair sounded identical to me. I've listened to them enough to grok the sound. And while that's getting mighty close to acclimating to the sound (and surely there is some truth to that too). But also within that time, I'm sure i would notice if they weren't living up to the esteem i have for them. At some point some flaw would grow unignorable

Besides, there are unexpected downsides to getting a Giant Killer as basically your first IEM. Upgrading is nearly impossible, since I already had the best sounding pair stocked by the major department stores, then the first few pairs I ordered sounded at best equal to the Philips. Then I wasn't a part the larger, more aware community like we are today. I didn't know what "normal" was, or that subjective taste matters more than objective performance, if objective/subjective were even in my vocabulary then.

My point is I've given them ample opportunity to disappoint. They haven't.


Who are you to declare what a Giant killer is?

I'm nobody, of course. I just want to put the idea out there, because I believe in these little guys. You all will have to decide for yourselves, and with,enough exposure, a consensus will form, leaning one way or the other. I can't control that process, but you can.


Summary

The Philips SHE3905 is the mainstay of the budget IEM field. They won't take down the biggest of the big, but then nothing will do that without being a giant itself. Sleek, comfortable, and performing on Broadway for Branson prices, they come as close as anything. Inexpensive and ubiquitous, available any day in any small to moderately sized town in North America if not the world, the 3905 should be the go-to reccomendation for anybody on a budget, admitted audiophile or not.

--Rocket

UPDATE: The following review is for the TBSE1 with 3rd party velour covered memoryfoam earpads from massdrop. I added a bit about how other earpads effect the sound at the end:

What a great headphone! Disclaimer: at my house to get any head time at all, you've got to match up with the Sennheiser HD800, PSB M4U 1, Klipsch Status, HiFiMan RE-262, and others. In short, the Koss Tony Bennet is the over-ear equivalent of the RE262; both are mid-forward with deceptively strong bass and calm highs.

I don't find them to be excessively bass light, thanks to a very deep extention.Bass is typically low in volume and high in quality. But give them a bassy DAC like the Geek Out V2+, and they positively slam! Compare to the M4U/Mojo combo perhaps.
Note on bass: I don't reccomend trying to increase the bottom end with the EQ. You'll get your little bit of extra bass all right, but at the cost of some of the quality in the mids, which is where its at in these headphones. If you want more bass put on a different headphone, or a bassier DAC.

Soundstage is adequate. I think i hear soundstage differently than most, so YMMV.

As Tyll says, they are well built and easy to mod. Even though the cable is removable already, I immediately converted mine to dual mono entry, for easy use with both SE & balanced DAC/amps.

Great for all genres; better for EDM than you might think. They make it easier to understand hip hop vocalists. They scale well, sounding good off an iPod Nano 2gen, & sounding even better with better signals, all the way up to powerful balanced amps.

They'll never compete with the HD800 in clarity or technical anything, but they have a smooth, relaxed sound that's plain addicting. A real go-to pair any time I don't want or need mass quantities of bass, but still want to hear all of it, and the simple, elegant style works perfectly for the image i usually go for. For me, for the price, 5 stars easy.

Earpad variations:
I've long understood the value,of tiprolling IEMs, but swapping different pads onto and off the TBSE1 was a revelation to me. For example, while the velour/memoryfoam pads are the most comfortable I've used (and the warmest on cold winter nights), i think I like the sound better with stock earpads off an ATH-M50. With the M50 pads, the bass is much stronger and punchier, resulting in a much more balanced sound overall. In fact, I have trouble telling the difference between these and the M50 now! One identifying factor is that while the M50 still emphasizes bass a bit more, the TBSE1 actually reaches lower down the scale than the M50 can!

Buying the Koss TBSE1 (or the DJ100 it's based on, presumably) nominally gets you two very different headphones.One with that relaxing mid-centric sound, the other an M50 clone with notably better bass, but with dryer, less exciting treble. I'm going to leave the M50 pads here for awhile. Meanwhile, the velour memory foams don't take nearly so much bass away from the M50 while expanding the soundstage by a factor of 3 or 4. It comes with the price of greatly reduced isolation, but that's a topic for a different review.