[mateusbatera]

Hello there, this is my first post, cuz I'm kind of noob in this audiophile subjects. Can anyone help me here? I live in Brazil, and I recently purchased a Koss PortaPro from an eBay seller. The main reason for which I chose eBay is because I would pay at least twice as much for the very same headphone here in Brazil.

Of course I took a long time carefully looking for a seller that seems to be honest. Then I found a $31.00 PortaPro (plus $15.00 for shipping), from this seller:

eBay My World - quickestmail


I bought it and when it arrived, I immediately turned my computer on, and played my favorites songs on it. However I was surprised, because I had read about PortaPro in many reviews, and I expected to listen powerful basses, but I got poor basses and shiny trebles instead.

My point is: have I been tricked? Did I buy a fake PortaPro? I checked many photos on google, and I found no differences between mine and the original. Every single detail is identical. So I guess there are four possibilities:

1) I just need to get used to wearing good professional headphones.
2) I bought the most perfect replica ever made.
3) My sound card sucks, or maybe it's just an equalization issue.
4) I just need to make a burn-in on my phones.

That's my question, can anybody help me?

 

[ljokerl]

1.) Professional earphones or not, lack of bass doesn't take an expert to notice, unless you've previously used (and gotten accustomed to) some real bass monsters.

2.) I've never heard of fake portapros, and $31 seems like a low but not impossible price for a real pair.

3.) The Portas should definitely have some bass with a flat eq (I'm assuming you don't have the low end eq'd way down). The 60 ohm impedance shouldn't be a problem for your computer either.

4.)I think letting them burn in for a few days would be the cheapest/easiest solution at this point.

 

[RedSox]

There could be fake drivers in real casing, too.

 

[mateusbatera]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RedSox /img/forum/go_quote.gif There could be fake drivers in real casing, too.

This is news to me. Could it really be possbible, even if I received the product within the original sealed package? It even has the lifetime warranty logo and warranty information printed on it.

 

[cheezburgernz]

Relax OP. You don't need to worry about it.

When I first got my porta pro's, I hated the sound, they were fatiguing and uncomfortable.

But after burn in, they sounded great. Dont forget to use the 'light' setting if they are too tight on your head.

There's a reason these earphones are so popular! They really sound great, and are amazing value.

Enjoy!

 

[mateusbatera]

Comfort is not an issue at all. They actually feel great in my head, an this is itself a great feature, because my ears are a little bigger than average, and I had problems with all supra-aural headphones I've tried before PortaPro.

And about burn-in, what procedure do you recommend me to do? I've heard about playing pink noise for 300+ hours, is this correct? I just want to be sure I'm not spoiling my brand new phones.

 

[ljokerl]

It varies with each particular headphone, but I think 100 hours is the average recommended burn-in. I usually just let music play through my phones at a slightly-above-listening volume, but a some people prefer pink noise.

And don't worry, you won't "ruin" them by burning in too much or too little.

 

[mateusbatera]

There is something I noticed today. They came in a white package, just like this.

But today I passed by a store and saw some Koss phones, and I noticed the packaging were totally different, in a blue color, like this one.

Other slight difference that I noticed was the plug. While my phones have a straight 3.5m plug, the official photos shows 90 degree plugs.

Is this an usual difference? I guess I'm just being paranoid, maybe. I just want to be sure I did not waste my money.

 

[kjk1281]

I think you should be fine. The blue packaging and L-plugged models are the older versions. Many people have reported here that the newer KSC75s come with a straight plug, presumably in the newly designed white packaging.

 

[mateusbatera]

I just figured this out. I was using my speakers plugged in the green connector of my sound card (line out). The headphone was plugged in the blue connector (which I set up to use as headphone output, using the Realtek Audio Manager). I figured out that this blue connector is supposed to be used as line in, then I fixed the connections. For my surprise, this made a huge difference, now I can hear the basses and everything else.

Why does this happen? Can't I use the line-in as a second output?

 

[SuperD]

Man there is Fake ones. Looks for the lines with "iPhone" on the case, that's real one. Fake one ain't have that line instead of a line with frequency response range.

 

[torpy]

My 2 year old KSC75s came in that white packaging, don't worry.

 

[HeavenlySword]

So I just bought a pair on ebay from simonsitems
They were fake. Here's how I can tell.
Real Portapros have the number "1" on the inner plastic like this:

the fake ones I got from ebay said "4". also the number is printed on rough-looking plastic, where the Real thing above has the number 1 printed on smooth plastic.

The real ones has color-matching sponges as seen on the follow picture on the right, where the left one is the fake one with different color sponges.

check mine out, different colors:

The real ones have a trash can white tag next to the plug like this

but the one I got doesn't have it

 

[ethan961]

I know this is an old thread, but I had the same problem with my Realtek audio. I thought the same thing, and I was wondering how people said this chipset had good SQ, as I was hearing garbage and seemed to need an amp. Then I switched the jack, and voila, beautiful sound. I think the outputs are designed to be outputs and inputs designed to be inputs. Just like how a microphone can be a speaker if you really want it to, and how a speaker can be a mic if you really want it to.

 

[MightyFine Shindig]

I've also been a recent victim to buying fake portapro's on ebay. One other thing i noticed which i dont think was mentioned was that the firm-light sticker is switched around.

It reads: Light . . . Firm on the fakes.