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Published: October 20, 2009
I have enjoyed using Koss products for years, and highlights include the Koss Porta Pro and the Koss Sparkplug. Seeing a modified Sparkplug with microphone for the iPhone called Koss iSpark was more than I could resist.
My experience with Koss has been mostly positive even though some of them have had questionable build quality. The Sporta Pro lost the left channel, and the KSC75 broke down completely a couple of times. The Sparkplug though has been sturdy, and finally broke when I managed to get it caught in my rear wheel while cycling. All of the Koss earphones have one thing in common, good practical design. That was until I met the iSpark.
With the iSpark I seriously question whether it has been tested before shipping. The problem is that the construction of the earphone is flawed. The small stem on the earphone that the foam eartip(cushion) is supposed to be placed on is too short. The foam eartip doesn’t grip the stem hard enough, and sadly it falls off all the time. When I take the iSpark out of my ear the foam eartip stays in my ear. If you place it in your pocket the foam eartips will fall off, and you have to grope your pockets to find them. The worst case scenario is when you remove them, and just let the earphones hang around your neck or out of your jacket. This leads to adult treasure hunts when you backtrack your steps to find where the eartips fell off. The adult part is actually the swearing being done by the adult scavenging for small pieces of foam. To me this flaw breaks the iSpark, and I can’t understand how they messed the iSpark up this bad after years of working Sparkplugs with the same design.
The sound quality when properly inserted is great with just a hint of too much bass, and a sense of vacuum. Noise isolation is also good, sadly though you won’t want to take the earphones out once inserted if someone wants to chat with you. The social blunder of removing earphones just to have foam eartips sticking out of your ears is just to strange.
The foam eartips have to be compressed between your fingers to fit into your ears. The strange thing is that they slowly expand inside my ears giving a quick creepy sensation. To counter this I try to push them in further, and the result is that the plastic stem of the eartips poke me. It is hard to have the iSpark in the ears for longer sessions due to this expansion, and it has to be reinsterted regularly.
The iSpark looks old, and clunky when compared to the Sparkplug due to it all being in black. Black should be slimming but strangely isn’t in the case of the iSpark. The clunkyness feels especially clunky when you see them laying next to the thin cord. The cord feels frail but I have not had any trouble with it breaking, and it is not too prone to entanglement. The left earphone has only a short stump of cord(8 cm) before it connect to the longer cord of the right earphone. This looks strange when you get the cord between the earphones dangling just beneath your face. It places the microphone nicely next to your mouth. The microphone is not great for conversations as they become muddy and hard for the recipient to hear. It works well with Voice Control though.
The Koss iSpark is a budget stereophone with good sound quality, noise isolation and a barely decent microphone. Sadly the design is poor to the point where I would like to call it broken. I can not recommend the Koss iSpark to anyone.
Final Rating
Koss iSpark at Amazon.com $22.30
Koss iSpark at Koss.com $39.99
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One Comment on "Koss iSpark stereophones review"
Silent Rocco on Tue, 20th Oct 2009 8:06 pm
Pitty.
I’m also a HUGE fan of the Porta Pro.
These are still my all-time fav headphones.
So, thanks for the review.