Koss headphones only make you look dumb.
December 17, 2009 § 2 Comments
But as it happens, they’re actually a sound investment in low-cost hi-fi.
About a month ago my Koss PortaPro headphones, pictured above (I think: more on this below), crapped out in the left channel. They’d only cost me about $30 on eBay (new, packaged) and I’d gotten around 2 years of near-daily use out of them, so I wasn’t going to mourn their demise too deeply. But 3 pairs of replacement foam earpads arrived the same day (also cheaply procured through eBay; I have no idea why people still go to retail stores for this kind of thing) so I was a bit annoyed at my luck.
Before I ordered a pair of Sennheiser PX100s I thought to contact Koss to see what recourse I had with my half-dead cans. That’s when I stumbled upon their lifetime guarantee. It’s a pretty simple deal: send the headphones and a money order for $7 to their factory in Milwaukee and they’lll send you back working headphones.
Allie went to the post office the next day and bought a USD$7 money order and a bubble envelope and sent the package to Milwaukee with a note I’d written saying “left channel dead”.
Today I got a pair of working, suspiciously new-feeling, Koss PortaPros in the mail. I don’t know if these are the headphones I sent them. It doesn’t really matter. $7 every couple of years is a fair price for perpetual, no-questions-asked, straight-shooting service.
You should buy yourself a pair. They sound great and look ugly as hell.
Nathan's blog 
Going to retail locations to purchase headphones or most electronics might be folly. However, using those stores to test the product and find the one you like makes perfect sense. I recommend the wall o’ headphones at Bay/Bloor Radio.
Just bought new earphones the other day. I have adopted the earphones are like sunglasses approach. High frequency purchases at low costs. Your post has me reconsidering.