Koss A/200, how you pain me so
Apr 12 '00
I'll admit right off that the A/200 is the first open-back design I've ever auditioned. The only other high-end headphone I've listened to for a lengthy amount of time is the Sony MDR-V6 cans (not to be confused with the MDR-V600). I've had these Sonys for a few weeks now, and I've been listening almost everyday to them for hours, so I'm very familiar with their sound reproduction properties. A little dark (as is normal for a closed phone), and very even and flat through the entire frequency range. But I digress, on to the Koss review:
The Koss package: The A/200 comes in a plastic tub enclosure. Nothing too unusual, and no added freebies. Considering these used to retail for $200, I don't wonder why few people bought these. Now they're selling at 75% off at J&R (my opinions as to why I think they're so cheap is at the end). The headphone jack is terminated with a 1/4 plug, and comes with a 1/8 attachment. Underneath the headband is some very soft, plush foam surrounded by leather. The two ear pieces detach for portability, but I ended up fumbling around with them because I'd accidentally detach the ear pieces while adjusting the phones. The mechanism to connect the ear pieces don't look all that sturdy, and I wonder how long it would last before it would break. The ear pieces themselves have deep cloth pads on them. Anybody's ears would fit very comfortably inside them. It is an open-back design, and has a metal grill on the outside. Most of the headphone is made of light plastic material, as a result, these are very light on the head. I have to be honest, if I was given these phones by somebody else, I'd estimate their retail price at around $50 or $60 tops.
The listening test: Upon ordering the Koss phones, I was really anticipating a lot from them. The reviews by Van and Reticuli (two posters from headwize.com) really pumped me up for a great sounding pair of open phones, and I was ready to take them in with open arms. I was ready for a very open, transparent, supple sound, with a lot of bass response. Well, when I listened to these cans for the first time, I got all that in spades. I just sat in my chair, stunned, switching back and forth between the Sony and the Koss. But once the initial novelty of an open-back design was over, I got down to really listening to them, and I found a few gremlins in them sounds.
I'll say right now, when I say I was "stunned" by the Koss phones upon first hearing it, I am referring to individual elements of sound reproduction that I'd never heard through my Sony phones, and not the music itself. This is a very important distinction I have to make. I listened to a variety of musical pieces including, but not limited to: No Doubt (ska), Fantasia 2000 (broadway, classical), John Coltrane's Greatest (jazz), The Mallrats soundtrack (alternative), Nine Inch Nails (ambient, industrial hard core), Mariah Carey (female soprano), and Don Giovanni from the Amadeus soundtrack (male tenor). All sources were CD's and listened through a Sony portable player and a JVC component system. None of these are even remotely hi-end gear, and no amps were used, so please take that into account and curve my opinions as you see fit.
The A/200's are superbly open and transparent. The problem is, they also have a very harsh high end. I've heard people say the V6's are bright, well if that's so, then the A/200 is ultra bright. I don't really consider my V6's bright anymore because of listening to the A/200. Compared to the Koss, the V6 sounds muffled in comparison. All this high end harshness makes any rock, pop, alternative, jazz, classical (most everything out there) sound very forced and shrilly. I was extremely appalled when John Coltrane's sax sounded like some amateur was blowing the wrong notes on them. However, on top of that, there's an added deficiency of a weak midrange. So you essentially have a depressed midrange with an impressed upper range. It's the worst with vocals, as Mariah Carey and Gwen Stefani sounded like someone was choking them, making them squeal even higher. The male vocals didn't fare any better, as there was also a shrill quality to the tenors. The kind of juicy or supple sound that a good vocal should produce is not possible with the A/200's.
But there's more, the A/200 has a very impressive low-end also ("rattles my eyeballs in their sockets" as Van put it). So now you have a saddle effect, where everything above and below the midrange is more prominent. This *really* makes the music sound good, let me tell you. This characteristic has the tendency to give the musical elements a level of equality--all the instruments are given equal prominence. How so? Well, the vocal in the foreground goes a little into the background and that bass guitar in the background comes a little more into the foreground. So now you don't know what you should be listening to. If you choose to listen to the vocals, you have to strain your ears, but then all you get is something very shrill and bright. If you choose not to strain your ears, then you'll hear every single instrument in the musical piece as if they were the only instruments playing--a chair creaking, a stereo swoosh effect, a bass track--they're all very prominent. Quite an odd effect.
Like I said, I listened to a variety of musical pieces, not just pop and classical. The Koss A/200 makes all music sound like this. However! I have to add a little caveat here. These phones make ambient/electronic music sound gorgeous! Without any preconceived notions of what should or should not be in the foreground or background, you get to just enjoy every little whistle or pop or whatever. The Nine Inch Nails tracks that were mostly industrial/electronic/ambient noise had more depth than I'd ever imagined. That's why I say these phones should only be bought if you listen to a lot of this sort of stuff.
But if you like listening to a woman's voice that's not shrill, or a saxophone that's not off-pitch, or even listening to a guitar that doesn't sound like someone scratching their nails on the chalkboard, stay far away from the Koss A/200. I found myself constantly putting on my V6's to see if I was crazy, but the sound from them sounded positively liquid compared to what the A/200 was putting out. Transparency, openness, and bass response should not be the only reasons for buying headphones, and this is why.
I did as thorough a search as I could on the web for any sort of reviews on the Koss A/200, and the only ones I found were by Van in the Deja product reviews section, and of course, the posts on the Headwize forum. Nothing else. Nada. Only a bunch of clearance sales listing the A/200's. I'm pretty positive now why this is so. These headphones have something very, very wrong with them. They just don't sound very good at all unless you have an upper frequency hearing loss or just listen to ambient music all the time.
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Nawhead
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