[cam94z28]

  I wonder how common Koss counterfeits are on Amazon. With the exception of my ESP-950 and KSC-35s, I have purchased most of my pairs of Koss' off of Amazon. I thought the KTXPRO1 kinda sucked, and the UR55 were only barely acceptable at 1/2 off retail. Both of those came from Amazon. Maybe they were fakes and that's why I didn't care for either. The UR55 was at the point of being almost too small and I never had that problem with other headphones, but that's a separate issue. I still love my KSC-35 and KSC-75 headphones with the PE headband.
 
I tried to give Koss business because of their heritage and I kinda like rooting for the forgotten underdog, but I'm only impressed with their products about half the time. If I was their marketing manager I'd probably cull 1/3 of the models they offer and focus on fewer SKUs to make the line more coherent. Sometimes I wonder if they even have any real engineers working for them any more. Unless Koss returns to their roots and does something really spectacular, I'm probably done with them. There isn't really anything else in their line I want to try. I own enough headphones and am more focused on amps and sources now anyway.
 
 
 

Well, my first pair of (defective) UR55's were from a 3rd party seller, but shipped by Amazon Prime (Fullfillment by Amazon). I made sure the replacement pair was "sold and shipped" by Amazon, and they were good. I believe my SportaPro's were also 3rd party Amazon fulfillment, and they were fine. The fitment was definitely not a "fake" issue. They wear small, but I have found tilting them back on the head by about 4-6", so they're resting on the flatter part of the top of the head, improves the fit. IMO it actually smoothes out their sound a bit, too. even though the drivers aren't angled.
 
The TD65's were the first Koss's I ever owned, and I fell in love with those. They definitely had a rolled off treble, but had a smoothness to their sound. I remember listening to them on 12 hour road trips without any fatigue. They stopped making them, and they're not even on the Koss history web site. They apparently had drivers with "Anisotropic Ferrite Magnets". It added some kind of magic to their sound. Koss has made some bad choices, like hiring that one member of their staff that embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars of company money, and almost sent them under. But overall, I think their research and balancing price/performance pays off, unlike something the likes of Bose. But I agree, their headphone line is pretty much tapped out. IMO, they should keep the portapro, sportapro, KSC, pulse (ur55), ESP, DJ-1/200 lines, and maybe UR40, trash everything else, and start developing completely new, from scratch, products. Possibly with a more modern driver. I'm pretty sure everything uses some variation of the PortaPro Titanium driver.

 

[crazychile]

If everything in their line used a variation of the PortaPro driver, that would be a good thing. Unfortunately it really can't be true. I tried some cheaper clip / bud variation where the driver is just too small and they sucked. I'm not expecting miracles with the cheap stuff, but they set the bar pretty high with the KSC-75. You mentioned the issue with employee that embezzled ( it was their CFO maybe?) and I know that almost sunk them. That's why my hypothesis lends itself to speculating that their engineering staff has been pretty weak lately, and nothing really special has been announced. I think they've been trying to save money by scaling back, and I hope it's not too late to turn things around.

Koss really needs to get their act together and work on dominating that $200 -$500 range. They could do it with some clear vision and competent engineers. That technology would then trickle into the affordable stuff eventually. They really need to become the American equivalent of Sennheiser, but that would take some time and real dedication.

 

[cam94z28]

If everything in their line used a variation of the PortaPro driver, that would be a good thing. Unfortunately it really can't be true. I tried some cheaper clip / bud variation where the driver is just too small and they sucked. I'm not expecting miracles with the cheap stuff, but they set the bar pretty high with the KSC-75. You mentioned the issue with employee that embezzled ( it was their CFO maybe?) and I know that almost sunk them. That's why my hypothesis lends itself to speculating that their engineering staff has been pretty weak lately, and nothing really special has been announced. I think they've been trying to save money by scaling back, and I hope it's not too late to turn things around.

Koss really needs to get their act together and work on dominating that $200 -$500 range. They could do it with some clear vision and competent engineers. That technology would then trickle into the affordable stuff eventually. They really need to become the American equivalent of Sennheiser, but that would take some time and real dedication.

It makes sense that they might be running themselves a bit thin, in order to stay afloat. You are right, I'm sure their entry level "walkman grade" headphones don't use the titanium drivers. They also had an older model of 'behind-the-ear' sport headphones that sounded like garbage. But the Pro4 series apparently use the same titanium driver, despite reportedly sounding pretty bad.
 
I totally agree, that if they put some research into a HD6xx caliber headphone, they might have a giant killer on their hands, and would definitely help improve their margins. I doubt the HD650's, for example, cost much more than $40-50 to make.

 

[Music Alchemist]

I for one prefer the KTXPRO1 over the HD 650 even though it's not objectively as good.

 

[Music Alchemist]

Man, EQ is hard. I can reduce every frequency above 2 kHz (by the same amount) to easily remove the extreme brightness, but that just makes everything sound dull. To get things to sound right, you have to set an exact amount for each frequency, which takes hours of hard work. *sigh*