The Koss Porta Professional headphones are one of the crucial iconic and in style designs within the historical past of audio tools. The headphones had been first launched in 1984 in response to the rise of the Sony Walkman and aimed to translate the corporate’s audio prowess into a conveyable, inexpensive kind issue.
The outcomes had been unmistakably odd. The collapsible headband, blue driver housings and placing form meant you might spot them from a mile away. However Koss managed to ship its trademark heat, bassy sound signature into an accessible product, and its retro-futuristic industrial design has by no means fairly gone out of favor.
[Photo: Wikimedia]
Koss, which remains to be a family-run enterprise headquartered in Milwaukee, bought the Porta Professional just about unchanged for many years. At below $50, they remained an awesome possibility for on-the-go listening. However with the demise of the smartphone headphone jack, ultimately a contemporary wi-fi replace was an apparent transfer.
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Going wi-fi
Sadly, Koss’s first try in 2018 was a whiff. Regardless of coming after Apple’s AirPods made their debut, the wi-fi Porta Professional relied on a cable that housed an inline distant and a battery that rested on the wearer’s neck. Between the awkward wearability and a persistently flashing blue LED, the suggestions was typically scathing.
However not too long ago, I discovered that Koss launched a radically up to date model round a 12 months in the past, dubbed the Porta Professional Wi-fi 2.0. This feels just like the type of factor I ought to have seen on the time, however apparently Koss didn’t really feel the necessity to really inform anybody concerning the new model. There’s a press launch, positive, however for some motive the product received just about no protection within the standard channels.
Main websites like The Verge didn’t comply with up on withering protection of the 1.0 mannequin. You gained’t discover critiques on main audio tools shops. Even the thread on legendarily obsessive audiophile discussion board Head-Fi has simply 13 posts. (For comparability, the thread by myself Koss go-tos, the comparatively obscure KPH30i, has 392.)
The Porta Professional Wi-fi 2.0 is, nevertheless, freely obtainable to order on Amazon for $99, so clearly I needed to test it out.
[Photo: Koss]
Nailed it
I’m happy to report that Koss really nailed all the pieces with this 2.0 version. These are, for principally higher and sometimes worse, precisely what you’ll have anticipated from a wi-fi set of Porta Professional headphones within the first place.
Most significantly, the dangly neck wire has been banished. It’s now really correct to name these “wi-fi.” You lose the controls on the inline distant, positive, however I believe most individuals would take that tradeoff. And whereas the design of the cans themselves stays the identical as the unique, the shortage of wire makes them way more sensible to put on.
On the tech facet of issues, Koss has fortunately upgraded the two.0 mannequin to USB-C for charging. There’s nonetheless a pulsating LED that signifies connectivity, however it’s tucked away on the underside of the correct earpiece and isn’t vibrant sufficient to be an annoyance. And in contrast to the earlier mannequin, these help analog audio by way of a cable when the battery dies.
Porta Professional headphones had been by no means recognized for his or her sturdy construct high quality—in truth, they’re positively flimsy. However the upside of that is that they’re very snug and could be squeezed down simply right into a small round footprint, which Koss takes benefit of with the useful inclusion of a compact spherical laborious case.
As for the sound, properly, they sound like Porta Professional headphones, which is to say they sound superior for what they’re. They’re not precisely reference-level audio {hardware}, however the thumping bass and smoothed-off treble is a superb match for rock, rap and past, whereas the semi-open-back design permits for sound that feels wider and fewer claustrophobic than noise-cancelling Bluetooth cans.
[Photo: Koss]
The Porta Professional Wi-fi 2.0 does nonetheless really feel fairly retro, for higher and worse. There’s the light-weight plastic design, after all, which I think about Koss accurately deemed to be nonnegotiable. However there’s additionally the shortage of contemporary options which might be normal on headphones lately, like straightforward pairing. Getting these up and operating in your cellphone is a roughly equal expertise to utilizing a Bluetooth earpiece in your automobile 15 years in the past.
In case you’ve by no means used Porta Professional headphones earlier than, I must also level out that these usually are not essentially essentially the most versatile headphones round. The on-ear, semi-open-back design is what permits the surprisingly vast soundstage, however it additionally means they provide just about no sound isolation, and your audio goes to leak out to individuals round you. In different phrases, don’t plan to make use of them on a airplane.
Nonetheless, general the Porta Professional Wi-fi 2.0 does precisely what it should—these are Porta Professional headphones, however wi-fi. Possibly the muted launch was as a result of Koss was stung by the reception to the earlier wi-fi mannequin. In that case, I believe that was a mistake. That was a nasty product, and this isn’t.
I believe the world ought to know that you may, in truth, now purchase an awesome wi-fi model of Porta Professional headphones, which stay a real design basic to at the present time. I’m truthfully undecided why this was information to me, but when it’s information to you too, my work right here is completed.
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