Koss UR-55

We've been looking forward to testing the UR-55 headphones for a while now.  That's because manufacturer Koss has promised something that's almost too good to be true: a professional quality product with Hi-Fi sound for less than £30.  The company also claims that they're just as suited for use at home as they are on the go.  In reality, we're far from convinced ...

Design: tight!

There's no use pretending that the UR-55s are anything but rock solid headphones.  They're well put together, there's no problem with the finish and Koss has chosen some tough materials.  But all that rigidity impacts on the comfort: the foam earpads are too hard when they squeeze onto your ears.  The honeycomb pattern only makes this worse.  The problems don't stop there, though: the headband that joins the two halves is very tight.  You can feel it pressing down on your head, and it even pulls the two earpads up and away from the ears of some users, depending on the size of your head. At least they won't fall off ...

Koss hasn't entirely abandoned us without accessories, but it might as well have done given that all you get is an adaptor for converting the 3.5 mm mini-jack cable to a 1/4'' jack.  Despite the fact that the headphones fold away, there's no carry case.

The last area of our investigation is the cable, which is perfectly satisfactory but only 1.2 m long (see the inset for more details).

Audio Quality: if you like the Koss Porta Pro ...

The overall sound is very similar to the Koss Porta Pro headphones and anybody who's tried them will know what to expect.  In general, that means a lot of emphasis on the bass (more so here than with the Porta Pros), so much so that detail is obscured in many cases.  There's a little dip in the lower end of the mid-range just before the main body of the mid-range which comes through loud and clear.  The treble, finally, is a little too soft but a little clearer.

There's hardly room to swing a cat in the soundscape produced by these headphones, and the closed design contributes to the sensation of being boxed in for the listener.  Spatial reproduction isn't very accurate, but at least the UR-55s don't make a complete hash of it.

There is one much bigger problem though: despite the closed design (that seems to have been replicated in the production): the headphones can slip around, allowing outside noise to creep in and what you're listening to to leak out.  It's not that surprising given how tough the earpads are and the grills on the outside.  But if you're out in public, it's hardly an ideal solution either for you or anybody sitting next to you ...

The Koss UR-55s are a very curious product: they're not particularly well-suited to mobile use, but they're clearly not designed for using at home either.  One thing's certain, though, if you're looking for the 'professional quality' and 'Hi-Fi sound' promised by Koss, you can look somewhere else.  They're hardly daylight robbery, but they're far from a good deal