[Music Alchemist]

  Slight differences are fine. The truth is it is possible for 2 of the same model of headphone to not sound exactly the same.
 
Since I am swapping both sides it won't really matter if there is a difference between the new and the old.
 
Now, if I were going to replace JUST the one that is starting to buzz it'd be a different story.
 
What would make me happiest would be if I could find a way to stop the buzzing. It's weird because it isn't consistent. I have played stuff that is louder and has more bass that doesn't cause the buzz and then I can be using them to hear during a video chat with a comfortable level and they buzz up a storm.
 
It may seem stupid, especially since these were "found" headphones rather than some I bought. I mean I have paid more for headphones at Dollar Tree (where everything is $1) than I paid for these.....unless you count the replacement pads I bought.
 
But, like I said, I prefer to fix things if I can rather than replace them. Granted there are times that replacing makes more financial sense. Technically I am replacing these but, I am keeping elements so that part of my brain that hates change won't be screaming so much.
 
Picture the Frankenstein monster when he goes "Fire BAD! RRRRR!!!!" Just replace 'fire" with "change."
 
Welcome to my brain.

 
Yeah, I've had multiple units of the same model of headphone various times, and some can differ more than many would think.
 
My KTXPRO1 rattles/buzzes on occasion because small hairs get stuck in there. This is fixed by taking off the pads, removing any hairs I can see, then blowing into the driver area to seek and destroy any hidden hairs.
 
Koss doesn't care how you got the headphones. As far as warranty goes, if you send them the headphone, that's all that matters.
 
I bought $1 headphones at the Dollar Tree once. They were one of the worst I've ever heard. haha
 
I derived amusement from your final comments.

 

[JamesWJ71]

Yeah Koss says they would repair or replace them. But, I am looking at it from a cost perspective. It would cost more to send the old ones to Koss than to get the KSC75's since I would only need to pay shipping from Amazon.
 
As I understand it, you have to pay the return shipping as well. If these were something more high-end it might be different but, when I can get new headphones for the cost of shipping alone and just put them in these cups that hardly makes the price of shipping worth it.
 
Also, I am not sure if my repairs to the orginal band would void the warranty.
 
As for hair or other debris causing the buzz. I thought of that when I took the grill off the one from my first Mac-5's (the ones that had totally went down the tube). There was some hair in it so I took the grill plate off the offending earpiece. It seemed to be okay. Even before I thought about something being inside the driver my thought was that the cover plate could be loose and buzzing against the baffle.
 
So, I made some think plastic spacers to fill any gap. It "seemed" to help and also not to help.
 
It's possible that the particular diaphragm is just getting weak. I mean, how long ago did Ford vans come with these things? And people didn't always take good care of them. Hence why the headbands tended to get brittle...besides the fact they they were made of not the best plastic. They were typically used to let kids watch movies and keep them quiet while the parents drove or slept on vacations.
 
Koss barely has information about these "Koss by Ford" models. Before the right side started buzzing I contacted them to find out what size I needed for replacement cushions. The woman I spoke to had to look the model up and said they had they were Mac-5's and used the same driver as PortaPros.
 
Well, that info turned out to be only partly correct. They are the same design the same as Mac-5's (though the ones made under the Mac-5 name had  shorter cords with the1/8" plug rather than the 1/4") and they are the same driver as the PortaPro and others. The problem is that the Mac-5 design has an oval plate that the pad needs to stretch over and it is bigger than the driver itself. I found out late last year (like in December) that the other headphones with the same driver the pad just goes over the rim of the driver.
 
I would stretch the pads every time I used the headphones to try and make them fit better, they always would start to slip off. They never came off completely. Just enough to annoy the crap out of me.
 
If the baffle plate were the same size all the way around the driver, like 1/4 inch. It would be no issue. But, because it is oblong rather than round, it adds an inch in one direction and a half-inch in the other direction around the outside of the driver.
 
On the one hand the oblong ear piece is comfortable on the ear compared to the actual size of the driver (when you have a pad that is in good shape). On the other hand, it is a pain when you need to become a detective to find out what kind of foam pads to buy.
 
Again, welcome to my mind. Admission is free....there may be a fee when you want to leave.

 

[Music Alchemist]

They covered the cost of return shipping for me. I just had to ship it to them myself.
 
Reading through that last post stressed me out, man. haha. Buying new headphones would make your life so much simpler.

 

[JamesWJ71]

  They covered the cost of return shipping for me. I just had to ship it to them myself.
 
Reading through that last post stressed me out, man. haha. Buying new headphones would make your life so much simpler.

 

A lot of the posts I saw talking about the repair service said that you have to pay the return postage as well as shipping them there (not all were on this site). I mean I don't think many people would argue paying to ship them there. It's that return postage that makes it ominous.
 
Of course it can cost surprisingly  quite a bit to mail something like that anyway. Which is part of why I was thinking it would be easier to just buy the KSC75's and stick them in my head set. If need be I can make modifications.
 
That's why god made the Dremel and J-B Weld!
 
And if that previous post stressed you then you should be  glad the last one I wrote seems to have  disappeared after I edited it...unless that's the one you are referring to (it mentioned the issued I had in finding replacement ear pads).
 
Some things on the internet vanish for no apparent reason. Then there are the things you WISH would go away that seem to endure forever,

 

[Music Alchemist]

  A lot of the posts I saw talking about the repair service said that you have to pay the return postage as well as shipping them there (not all were on this site). I mean I don't think many people would argue paying to ship them there. It's that return postage that makes it ominous.
 
Of course it can cost surprisingly  quite a bit to mail something like that anyway. Which is part of why I was thinking it would be easier to just buy the KSC75's and stick them in my head set. If need be I can make modifications.

 
I should have clarified that this was for a replacement, not repair.

 

[JamesWJ71]

   
I should have clarified that this was for a replacement, not repair.

The way I was understanding things it didn't matter if they repaired them or replaced them.
 
And, it isn't hard to believe as some companies will charge for such things. When you have so many people saying different things about how it works it makes it easier to make the choice to replace them on your own like I plan to do with the KSC75's.
 
Like I said, I will only need to pay the shipping since I have $15 in Amazon gift card credits.
 
That'll be just under $7 but, I know what I am getting for the cost.
 
It will cost a minimum of $3 to ship the headphones to Koss (possibly more depending on the box I would end up using...probably more) and in the end I have no clue what I would be getting back.

They did have a few models that had the same design as the Mac-5 though I don't know if they all had the same specs but, to my knowledge they are all discontinued.
 
The KTX Pro looks like the  closest thing they still make design-wise (as far as the headband).
 
They have MANY models that have the same basic driver design. Go to their web site and type 60 ohms into the search box and you will see all the models that use a variant of the same driver. Some with the titanium coating and some with plain mylar,
 
it makes it hard to understand the price differences between models.
 
Like the KSC35's are the EXACT same drivers as the Portapro but on ear clips like the KSC75 yet they cost as much or more than the Portapro. And the Sportapro is the same thing but with a cheaper headband than the Portapro. Yet these SMALL differences in the product can mean BIG price differences.

I am the kind of guy that would like to SEE why this model coats more that THAT model. Some companies will give an explanation that basically amounts to "we used magical pixie dust that we have specially flown in from Never-Never Land! It  comes directly out of Tinker-bell's butt!"
 
Have you heard of the high-end speaker cable that has arrows showing the direction the sound is supposed to travel? This is the pixie dust at work!

 

[Music Alchemist]

  I am the kind of guy that would like to SEE why this model coats more that THAT model.

 
Sometimes the differences are not due to sound quality. My Porta Pro KTC retails for $80 yet doesn't sound even half as good to me as the KTXPRO1 that only costs ten or twenty bucks. Go figure. I still use the Porta Pro for videos because it's the most comfortable headphone I've ever worn and I'm not picky with sound quality for videos.

 

[JamesWJ71]

   
Sometimes the differences are not due to sound quality. My Porta Pro KTC retails for $80 yet doesn't sound even half as good to me as the KTXPRO1 that only costs ten or twenty bucks. Go figure. I still use the Porta Pro for videos because it's the most comfortable headphone I've ever worn and I'm not picky with sound quality for videos.

 
I totally understand about being picky. I mean, look at how I am about deciding whether or not to spend the money on the KSC75's! And I will only need to pay like $6.95!
 
It's like the KSC35 costing around $45 and the only place to buy them is directly from Koss yet they are just ear-clip versions of the Porta Pro which you can get as low as $22 depending on the site.
 
The Porta Pro costs more than the Sporta Pro but it has a fancier head band so you can understand it costing more. Maybe you can't see the reason for every penny in higher cost but you can see some reason. The KSC35 has NO headband and the ear clips are cheaper than those of the KSC75 yet they cost $45.
 
That is the sort of thing that makes you want to find out who needs to be smacked up-side the head

 

[Music Alchemist]

  I totally understand about being picky. I mean, look at how I am about deciding whether or not to spend the money on the KSC75's! And I will only need to pay like $6.95!
 
It's like the KSC35 costing around $45 and the only place to buy them is directly from Koss yet they are just ear-clip versions of the Porta Pro which you can get as low as $22 depending on the site.
 
The Porta Pro costs more than the Sporta Pro but it has a fancier head band so you can understand it costing more. Maybe you can't see the reason for every penny in higher cost but you can see some reason. The KSC35 has NO headband and the ear clips are cheaper than those of the KSC75 yet they cost $45.
 
That is the sort of thing that makes you want to find out who needs to be smacked up-side the head

 
As I understand it, the KSC35 is out of production. Some say it has better sound quality than the others we've mentioned, but I haven't heard it.

 

[JamesWJ71]

The KSC35 is available directly from the Koss website. It is ridiculously expensive. You could buy a pair of PortaPros and a KSC75 and pop the drivers off the PortaPro headband put the KSC75 clips on them and have the same thing plus you could put the KSC 75 drivers on the PortaPro band and you;d have TWo sets of headphones for not much more than the KSC35's.
 
https://www.koss.com/headphones/ear-clip/ksc35
 
Well, it would depend on which version of the PortaPro and where you buy it of course.

 

[Music Alchemist]

  The KSC35 is available directly from the Koss website. It is ridiculously expensive. You could buy a pair of PortaPros and a KSC75 and pop the drivers off the PortaPro headband put the KSC75 clips on them and have the same thing plus you could put the KSC 75 drivers on the PortaPro band and you;d have TWo sets of headphones for not much more than the KSC35's.
 
https://www.koss.com/headphones/ear-clip/ksc35
 
Well, it would depend on which version of the PortaPro and where you buy it of course.

 
I believe it is more expensive because it is out of production. The KSC35 and KSC75 have different drivers. Putting different drivers on the different frames and enclosures results in different sound as well, I can tell you this from experience. For example, here is how I would rank the following in terms of sound quality:
 
KTXPRO1 > Porta Pro drivers on KTXPRO1 frame > Porta Pro > KTXPRO drivers on Porta Pro frame
 
Also, ridiculously expensive? Maybe compared to the KSC75. But there are headphones that cost four figures. I've had plenty.

 

[JamesWJ71]

Same driver as the PortaPro and the only real difference between them and the KSC75 is the KSC75 has the titanium coated diaphragm.
Well that and they are slightly  flatter than the KSC75.
 
There is a video review on Youtube talking about the three and the guy says he prefers the KSC35 over the Portapro/Sportapro even though they are technically the same drivers.
 
This may go back to the thing about small differences changing the sound. After all, the PortaPro and Sporta Pro have the headbands which ccover more of the back of the driver than the ear clips do.
 
Last night I learned that the Sporta Pro can be used as an over the head OR a behind the neck headphone. To me it looks too uncomfortable to use behind the neck and I like "street-style" headphones.
 
As to the KSC35, it is possible that they make a limited number and selling them ONLY from Koss would give them a reason to jack up the price because it would be an "exclusive."

 

[Music Alchemist]

  Same driver as the PortaPro and the only real difference between them and the KSC75 is the KSC75 has the titanium coated diaphragm.
Well that and they are slightly  flatter than the KSC75.
 
There is a video review on Youtube talking about the three and the guy says he prefers the KSC35 over the Portapro/Sportapro even though they are technically the same drivers.
 
This may go back to the thing about small differences changing the sound. After all, the PortaPro and Sporta Pro have the headbands which ccover more of the back of the driver than the ear clips do.
 
Last night I learned that the Sporta Pro can be used as an over the head OR a behind the neck headphone. To me it looks too uncomfortable to use behind the neck and I like "street-style" headphones.
 
As to the KSC35, it is possible that they make a limited number and selling them ONLY from Koss would give them a reason to jack up the price because it would be an "exclusive."

 
Yes, as I mentioned, the enclosure makes more of a difference than the drivers.
 
Just found this:
 
http://theheadphonelist.com/headphone-review/koss-ksc35/
 

Originally priced at just $30, the KSC35 has been brought back into production at a new price point after being discontinued in 2005.

 

[JamesWJ71]

On the plus side looking up the KSC35 I noticed they had a great side view of the driver so I  checked the Koss page for the KSC75 to see if they showed it the same way. It appears that the round back of the KSC75 is not as rounded as it seems in many of the photos and videos....at least based on the photos Koss used.

 

[JamesWJ71]

   
Yes, as I mentioned, the enclosure makes more of a difference than the drivers.
 
Just found this:
 
http://theheadphonelist.com/headphone-review/koss-ksc35/
 

 

To say "enclosure" with many of these models is not quite accurate. The ear-clip models and the PortaPro/SportaPro the drivers are not  enclosed at all. They just snap onto the ear-slips or headband. The headbands cover the backside of the driver but they are open other than that.
 
Now, the KTX Pro appears to be more like the Mac-5 where the driver sits inside of a small ear cup. Though the Mac-5 design has more space around the driver inside of the cup since the cup is oblong.