12 ms·

John Koss, headphones pioneer, has died (2021)

118 points by NaOH 5y ago

1MachineElf 5y ago
I've had three pairs of Koss PortaPro headphones and really enjoy them. Interesting to read this but of history about the company. Thanks Mr. Koss!
- anon_cow1111 5y ago
  I've also had multiple pairs and they've all broken within a year from sitting-at-desk usage. The frame is surprisingly sturdy but the internal/external wires are absolute garbage, not suitable for frequent travel at all. They sounded good while they were alive, though.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tetrahedon 5y ago
  I hope you are referring to their lifetime warranty and replaced them free of charge when they broke! Top company. https://koss.com/blogs/stories/use-koss-headphones-limited-lifetime-warranty https://koss.com/blogs/stories/use-koss-headphones-limited-l...
  - kqr 5y ago
    I never understood how they could make money on that deal. Those headphones were not built to last. I went through at least one pair a year back when I used them. Maybe it was the sort of loss leader that's financed by the marketing department.
    - marincounty 5y ago
      1. The cost from the factory in China couldn't be more than $5.00 on their priciest model. 2. They charge $9.00 return shipping, and I bet make a healthy profit? 3. They might break even, minus the goodwill, on Ibud replacements? (I don't know Apple products anymore. Excuse the nomenclature. Ibud sounds off.)
- antihero 5y ago
  My first half decent pair of earbuds were the Spark Plugs and I had several pairs of PortaPros before I realised they were blasting whoever was sitting near me on the tube! Good bits of kit and exceptional value for money. My first ever "wireless headphones" were a a pair of standard PortaPros with a cheap bluetooth DAC taped to the top of them, got many strange looks, but it was a fun setup!
voldacar 5y ago
RIP. Not sure about their other headphones, but the portapro is great bang for the buck and the esp950 is technically inferior to stax but still a nice headphone and I generally like it.
- jabl 5y ago
  I have a pair of esp/950 which are getting a bit old in the tooth. Very nice headphones, but also very expensive. I've been dithering between buying a new pair of headphones without buying a new amp, if that's possible, or then just getting rid of the entire package and buying something cheaper.
  - voldacar 5y ago
    If you like the electrostat sound, you should check out the cheaper stax models like the L300 or L500. Generally they are more resolving and have better extension at the ends of the frequency spectrum than the esp950, which is kind of "soft" sounding and has a mid-forward frequency response. The stax use a different connector and voltage, so they won't be compatible.
nr2x 5y ago
But the PortaPro will never die.
bitcharmer 5y ago
Koss UR40 were my first pair of good brand headphones. Insane quality, great sound and super comfy. Great piece of engineering. Had them for years. RIP Mr Koss.
iakov 5y ago
Wait, John died almost two months ago, on December 21st, 2021. How is this news?
- beermonster 5y ago
  Was news to me!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kenhwang 5y ago
RIP. My KSC75 got me through most of college. Wonderful audio quality and comfort for $20.
- indigodaddy 5y ago
  We have one of these and 3 pairs of KPH30i. All fantastic headphones for under $30. Cool thing about the KPH30i is that it has the in-line mic so they are perfect for work meetings as well. You don’t need to go back and forth between a work headset and music headphones— just use this for everything and it sounds great !!
- dalmo3 5y ago
  Impressive. I had 7 KSC75s over a 10 year span and all of them had broken wires after a year or two of heavy usage. Totally worthy it. Sadly the latest one I bought had a considerably lower audio quality so I barely used it... And it still broke just by sitting around in a drawer.
approxim8ion 5y ago
Never been able to try Koss headphones because of their unavailability (or availability at a near 100% markup) where I live, but they come highly recommended by the community from what I understand. Will grab a pair of KPH30i's when I can.
nvr219 5y ago
His ProtaPros were legendary. RIP to a real one.
dandare 5y ago
Tangential: is it just me or speakers made a huge leap forward over the last 20 years? I mean for given price range. Laptop speakers, headphone speakers, car speakers, any minisystem/potrable stereo speakers. Was there some prominent techonolgical improvement or just a miriad of small improvements? Also RIP to mister Koss.
- hotpotamus 5y ago
  My guess would be neodymium magnets.
- cunidev 5y ago
  On the value side, I totally agree. Early 2000 offerings were just... sad, partly due to the over-digitalization (I own a Marantz from that time, which forces many optimizations, Dolby support and similar, but in the end sounds considerably worse than its cheaper predecessors). For how I see it, in the last year there has been a huge increase of sound quality over price, probably partly due to the growing Chi-Fi competition (especially on headphones). I bought some sad Sennheiser IEMs in 2015 for around €160, and in 2022 they sound like garbage compared to some €40 offerings from China IEM brands (KZ, TRN, ... whatever). Also, awareness of Bluetooth and wireless sound quality has thankfully brought to something beyond extremely expensive devices that just sounded like excessive DSP and compression.
- BrS96bVxXBLzf5B 5y ago
  Hadn't noticed before but speakers haven't suffered the same fate as other tech where additions and improvements of tangential aspects haven't affected the core performance. A modern low/mid-end laptop has increased battery life and lower weight, at the expense of CPU power. Your new printer might have Wi-Fi and bluetooth, but jams and leaks too often and probably has increasingly restrictive cartridge DRM. A typical $30 bluetooth speaker has great battery life, is portable, usually rugged and often visually well designed too, and still sound as nice or nicer than I (non-audiophile) would expect from such a versatile budget device.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
adventured 5y ago
Last year I was traveling and needed a cheap pair of headphones (that I didn't care what happened to), so I grabbed a ~$18 pair of Koss UR20s. I was quite surprised at their decent quality & sound given the price, as my expectations couldn't have been lower. I'll probably get many years of use out of them given how they're holding up.
rdtwo 5y ago
What are the best headphones in the under 1000 range? Has there been a lot of improvement since I got my akg 701s
- buescher 5y ago
  Doubtful. You're probably into the range of diminishing returns with those. Switching will get you something different, and possibly more to your tastes, or more comfortable, not necessarily objectively better. I personally love the sound of electrostatic speakers and would try an affordable pair of electrostatic headphones as a step up from that class of open-back dynamic headphones if I were in the market today, but I don't listen to headphones as much as I used to.
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    Yeah definitely, I had heard that hd650s paired with a nice amp were about as good as you could get for under 3-4K wasn’t sure if anything made it to market that’s been really revolutionary. Really my problem is music discovery. Spotify doesn’t really do it for me, it just finds more of the same and never invites me to branch out.
    - buescher 5y ago
      I built the nwavguy O2 kit from jdslabs and like it. It does perk up the Sennheisers and would probably work well for your headphones. I don't hear a lot of difference between the Apple headphone adapter and jdslabs' "Objective DAC". The $10 Apple adapter might even be better than the ODAC, but it only works with my phone. I haven't used Spotify in years; I think I never reinstalled it when my old laptop died in 2018. I could never get past the audio quality of their free tier, and never tried the paid tier. Maybe it's better now. Their recommendations back then for me were really odd; I can understand why some people would complain. I am about the only person that likes Amazon's streaming service but their recommendations are just bland-to-bad. I've noticed Pandora channels have become much more repetitive. Maybe the whole industry has been pushed by their metrics to some horrible least-common-denominator point. There's an argument that discovery is an unsolved problem that doesn't pay. There was a discussion a while back on this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29474762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29474762
tamaharbor 5y ago
If anyone has a pair of Pro 4AA headphones with liquid filled ear pads still intact, please let me know.

118 points by NaOH 5y ago

I've had three pairs of Koss PortaPro headphones and really enjoy them. Interesting to read this but of history about the company. Thanks Mr. Koss!

anon_cow1111 5y ago
I've also had multiple pairs and they've all broken within a year from sitting-at-desk usage. The frame is surprisingly sturdy but the internal/external wires are absolute garbage, not suitable for frequent travel at all. They sounded good while they were alive, though.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tetrahedon 5y ago
I hope you are referring to their lifetime warranty and replaced them free of charge when they broke! Top company. https://koss.com/blogs/stories/use-koss-headphones-limited-lifetime-warranty https://koss.com/blogs/stories/use-koss-headphones-limited-l...
- kqr 5y ago
  I never understood how they could make money on that deal. Those headphones were not built to last. I went through at least one pair a year back when I used them. Maybe it was the sort of loss leader that's financed by the marketing department.
  - marincounty 5y ago
    1. The cost from the factory in China couldn't be more than $5.00 on their priciest model. 2. They charge $9.00 return shipping, and I bet make a healthy profit? 3. They might break even, minus the goodwill, on Ibud replacements? (I don't know Apple products anymore. Excuse the nomenclature. Ibud sounds off.)
antihero 5y ago
My first half decent pair of earbuds were the Spark Plugs and I had several pairs of PortaPros before I realised they were blasting whoever was sitting near me on the tube! Good bits of kit and exceptional value for money. My first ever "wireless headphones" were a a pair of standard PortaPros with a cheap bluetooth DAC taped to the top of them, got many strange looks, but it was a fun setup!

voldacar 5y ago

RIP. Not sure about their other headphones, but the portapro is great bang for the buck and the esp950 is technically inferior to stax but still a nice headphone and I generally like it.

jabl 5y ago
I have a pair of esp/950 which are getting a bit old in the tooth. Very nice headphones, but also very expensive. I've been dithering between buying a new pair of headphones without buying a new amp, if that's possible, or then just getting rid of the entire package and buying something cheaper.
- voldacar 5y ago
  If you like the electrostat sound, you should check out the cheaper stax models like the L300 or L500. Generally they are more resolving and have better extension at the ends of the frequency spectrum than the esp950, which is kind of "soft" sounding and has a mid-forward frequency response. The stax use a different connector and voltage, so they won't be compatible.

nr2x 5y ago

But the PortaPro will never die.

bitcharmer 5y ago

Koss UR40 were my first pair of good brand headphones. Insane quality, great sound and super comfy. Great piece of engineering. Had them for years. RIP Mr Koss.

iakov 5y ago

Wait, John died almost two months ago, on December 21st, 2021. How is this news?

beermonster 5y ago
Was news to me!

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kenhwang 5y ago

RIP. My KSC75 got me through most of college. Wonderful audio quality and comfort for $20.

indigodaddy 5y ago
We have one of these and 3 pairs of KPH30i. All fantastic headphones for under $30. Cool thing about the KPH30i is that it has the in-line mic so they are perfect for work meetings as well. You don’t need to go back and forth between a work headset and music headphones— just use this for everything and it sounds great !!
dalmo3 5y ago
Impressive. I had 7 KSC75s over a 10 year span and all of them had broken wires after a year or two of heavy usage. Totally worthy it. Sadly the latest one I bought had a considerably lower audio quality so I barely used it... And it still broke just by sitting around in a drawer.

approxim8ion 5y ago

Never been able to try Koss headphones because of their unavailability (or availability at a near 100% markup) where I live, but they come highly recommended by the community from what I understand. Will grab a pair of KPH30i's when I can.

nvr219 5y ago

His ProtaPros were legendary. RIP to a real one.

dandare 5y ago

Tangential: is it just me or speakers made a huge leap forward over the last 20 years? I mean for given price range. Laptop speakers, headphone speakers, car speakers, any minisystem/potrable stereo speakers. Was there some prominent techonolgical improvement or just a miriad of small improvements? Also RIP to mister Koss.

hotpotamus 5y ago
My guess would be neodymium magnets.
cunidev 5y ago
On the value side, I totally agree. Early 2000 offerings were just... sad, partly due to the over-digitalization (I own a Marantz from that time, which forces many optimizations, Dolby support and similar, but in the end sounds considerably worse than its cheaper predecessors). For how I see it, in the last year there has been a huge increase of sound quality over price, probably partly due to the growing Chi-Fi competition (especially on headphones). I bought some sad Sennheiser IEMs in 2015 for around €160, and in 2022 they sound like garbage compared to some €40 offerings from China IEM brands (KZ, TRN, ... whatever). Also, awareness of Bluetooth and wireless sound quality has thankfully brought to something beyond extremely expensive devices that just sounded like excessive DSP and compression.
BrS96bVxXBLzf5B 5y ago
Hadn't noticed before but speakers haven't suffered the same fate as other tech where additions and improvements of tangential aspects haven't affected the core performance. A modern low/mid-end laptop has increased battery life and lower weight, at the expense of CPU power. Your new printer might have Wi-Fi and bluetooth, but jams and leaks too often and probably has increasingly restrictive cartridge DRM. A typical $30 bluetooth speaker has great battery life, is portable, usually rugged and often visually well designed too, and still sound as nice or nicer than I (non-audiophile) would expect from such a versatile budget device.
- jeffbee 5y ago

adventured 5y ago

Last year I was traveling and needed a cheap pair of headphones (that I didn't care what happened to), so I grabbed a ~$18 pair of Koss UR20s. I was quite surprised at their decent quality & sound given the price, as my expectations couldn't have been lower. I'll probably get many years of use out of them given how they're holding up.

rdtwo 5y ago

What are the best headphones in the under 1000 range? Has there been a lot of improvement since I got my akg 701s

buescher 5y ago
Doubtful. You're probably into the range of diminishing returns with those. Switching will get you something different, and possibly more to your tastes, or more comfortable, not necessarily objectively better. I personally love the sound of electrostatic speakers and would try an affordable pair of electrostatic headphones as a step up from that class of open-back dynamic headphones if I were in the market today, but I don't listen to headphones as much as I used to.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Yeah definitely, I had heard that hd650s paired with a nice amp were about as good as you could get for under 3-4K wasn’t sure if anything made it to market that’s been really revolutionary. Really my problem is music discovery. Spotify doesn’t really do it for me, it just finds more of the same and never invites me to branch out.
  - buescher 5y ago
    I built the nwavguy O2 kit from jdslabs and like it. It does perk up the Sennheisers and would probably work well for your headphones. I don't hear a lot of difference between the Apple headphone adapter and jdslabs' "Objective DAC". The $10 Apple adapter might even be better than the ODAC, but it only works with my phone. I haven't used Spotify in years; I think I never reinstalled it when my old laptop died in 2018. I could never get past the audio quality of their free tier, and never tried the paid tier. Maybe it's better now. Their recommendations back then for me were really odd; I can understand why some people would complain. I am about the only person that likes Amazon's streaming service but their recommendations are just bland-to-bad. I've noticed Pandora channels have become much more repetitive. Maybe the whole industry has been pushed by their metrics to some horrible least-common-denominator point. There's an argument that discovery is an unsolved problem that doesn't pay. There was a discussion a while back on this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29474762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29474762

tamaharbor 5y ago

If anyone has a pair of Pro 4AA headphones with liquid filled ear pads still intact, please let me know.