Koss KSC75 - A Cheap Way To Make Your iPod Or Other Portable Sound Better

I recently bough a couple of headphones to upgrade both my home headphones and the ones that came with my iPod Nano. I have bought the Sennheiser HD202, mostly for home use and I got the Koss KSC75 for use with my iPod.

About Koss KSC75

The Koss KSC75 is a headphone that fits over your ear and has braces that fit around the ear and hold them in place. The braces are made of metal enclosed in plastic. The headphones themselves are rather large and cover the entire ear. The KSC75 sell for about $15 (I got mine for $13). They feature a 4-foot Y-style cord, 3.5mm gold-coated plug for portable devices.

The headphones have nominal impedance of 60 Ohm and advertised to produce 15-15,000 Hz frequency response. The marketing materials cite neodymium iron boron magnets offer deep bass performance and titanium-coated high-polymer drivers deliver accurate sound reproduction.

My headphones are made of gray plastic with felt pads and fit my ears well. They also seem to be durable. I pulled on one of the wires by accident once really hard and the brace that holds the headphone in place fell of, but I just snapped it back and that was it.

The 4-feet Y-type cable terminates with a compact 3.5-mm headphone plug that works well with portable devices (in fact it may be too long for some uses).

Usage

The take some time to put on because you have to thread your ear into the gap between the headphone itself and the brace attached to it. But the KSC75 are rather light and do not create much pressure on my ears or the areas around my ears. The padded areas over the drivers are soft enough.

I use the headphones with my receiver as well as with my iPod, mostly outdoors or on the train.

Sound Quality

The most important quality of the headphones is the sound quality. The KSC75 produce excellent sound (for the price) with well-defined bass, smooth frequency response and good treble. The instrument separation and placement is excellent and the overall sound quality is amazing at this price. They do not seem to reach as deep in bass area as the Sennheiser HD202 or other larger and more expensive headphones. But they sound very good for the price.

They sound pretty “warm” as well. And I definitely get the feeling of being able to hear instruments that I have not heard with the lesser headphones, e.g. stock iPod headphones or, worse yet, the stock headphones of the Philips HDD077 MP3 player that I had before.

The headphones did require some break-in time to sound their best. Not everyone believes in speaker/headphone break-in. What it is: you have to play music through the headphones at moderate volume for certain amount of hours before they start performing their best. I do believe that the sound of the KSC75 improved after about 20 hours of break-in.

The KSC75 can play pretty loud with portable gear like iPod Nano. But with some portable players that do not produce much volume and are designed for sensitive headphones (e.g. Philips HDD077), the volume might be insufficient for some songs and/or environments.

In case you are thinking about buying replacement headphones for your portable, make sure that your player can produce loud sound with your stock headphones first and expect that the volume can drop a little with the KSC75.

Sound Insulation

Also, the sound insulation is not as good as you would get with enclosed headphones. The amount of sound that comes out is not high and should not concern your fellow passengers in public transport if you do not play your music too loud. And the amount of outside noise that enters the headphones is not too high either.

Impedance

The KSC75 have impedance of 60 Ohms, which should suit most portable as well as home gear (provided you use the adaptor to fit larger jacks of home receivers).

Alternatives

For a less expensive alternative that is easier to put on, check out Philips HS500. The HS500 does not sound as good as the KSC75, but still sounds better than the stock headphones of iPod and other MP3 players or CD players. The HS500 is easier to put on or take off.

Bottom Line

The Koss KSC75 is a good inexpensive way to get better sound from your portable music player (be it MP3 or CD) and even get good sound from your PC or home gear without disturbing your family members or neighbors. And at about $15, it is inexpensive too.