Massdrop x Koss ESP/95X Electrostatic System Reviews | Drop

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Massdrop x Koss ESP/95X Electrostatic System

Audiophile

FULL DISCUSSION

noapp

Sep 26, 2019

Verified Buyer

Worst purchase ever!!!

If I could give zero star. I am among the first batch of customers getting this, and after just one week the right ear-cup consistently whined, even without any input. In better days, the sound from the system is amazing. Crystal clear and impactful. Now add a consistent whine into that and you get the picture. Any cheap headphone that costs less than $10 can do better than a broken (and arguably expensive) one. KOSS was nice enough to forfeit my $15 fixing fee, but I had to spend over $40 to ship back. Oh yes, they insisted to ship everything back instead of the problematic ear-cup. Then I waited almost three months (you read that correct), calling every other week, only to learn "the material is in shortage". After three months, I finally got the babe back and seriously, I just had one week with her. I assumed I could finally enjoy the good sound and forget about $40 and three months wasted. How naive I was! After two weeks, the whine appeared again. Admittedly, it is different from the last one and the volume is lower. But that is still too obvious during night listening, and also it is random. I am now facing a dilemma. Should I spend $40 and another three months trying to get it fixed? Or just stick with the bad lemon? From the last fixing process and how long it lasted, I have little confidence in quality assurance of KOSS, if nothing else. I get that some people (or most people) are happy with this with zero issue, but not me. How unlucky I am, being stuck with something I can neither return nor repair. That is why I stopped buying anything from MassDrop and also started avoiding KOSS the moment I see its brand. I am also quite regretful that I should have saved that money and added extra to buy something (arguably better) from Japan. No wonder this is sold at $500 but still gets less compliments/exposure compared to its Japanese competitor.

Recommends this product? No

Was this helpful?

Barondla

146

Sep 27, 2019

noapp@noapp sorry you are having so much trouble. It is possible to get a whine free set. Mine came from the first batch and have been whine free. Sometimes the problem seems to be inside the earcup and other times it is the E90 picking up noise. The E90 is very sensitive. You might try different cables, ac receptacles, and location to see if it helps. Good luck.

Sep 27, 2019

A community member

Nov 3, 2019

noappSimple fix brother,....don't buy the s... that Mass errr "DROP" sells! I've learned my lesson the hard way! Too many times!

Nov 3, 2019

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Crispin

Nov 10, 2019

Why are you still here?

Nov 10, 2019

Nottagorilla

Nov 20, 2019

noappI'm replying to this almost 2 months after you posted this; I wish you looked through previous posts & found my posts on this subject. I too, had this issue crop up after about a week/week & a half. I just waited it out, & it went away all on its own! I could get rid of the noise (a kind of hissing, sometimes faintly spluttering. As an abashed & experienced Electrostatic transducer fan who also owns several pairs of Electrostatic loudspeakers, I am used to a bit of Electrostatic "farting" now & again & don't get freaked out over it anymore) by tapping (NOT "banging"!) the affected cup FIRMLY with my index finger. That usually made it stop on my first attempt; on rarer occasions I had to tap it 2 or 3 times but NEVER more than 5. Sometimes it came back as little as 20 minutes later; other times it would behave at least 90 minutes before starting up again. So I would just give it yet another tap, & it would stop... Yes, this is a pain in the ass & shouldn't be tolerated. But I put up with it for another week, didn't freak out, because I have lots of Electrostatic experience & I knew this could likely be a slightly unusual break-in behaviour peculiar to these headphones. And I was right! By the next week, the hissy/spitties just....stopped. And they NEVER CAME BACK, either! So here I am, 6 months later & the headphones sound better & better with each passing minute they are PLUGGED IN & LEFT CHARGING CONTINUOUSLY. Perhaps, if you were turning them off & on just when you were listening to them this break-in behaviour could take longer, maybe even ALOT longer, to go away... Also, the noise has to be fairly faint; only clearly audible with soft/classical music or between tracks with rock music. And it needs to be responsive to your tapping on the "guilty" earcup. If it was worse than this, then OK you had a pair of stinkers & you have my sincere sympathies. I'm not impressed by the lackadaisical service you got, & I think they owe you a refund for all your shipping expenses if you had to send them back twice! Too bad. I hope you stuck it out & your issues matched mine (I've read of a small but definite number of cases like mine in this forum) & they just went away on their own, albeit not before scaring the stuffing out of you/pissing you off & making you groan with "Not again!" This is THE greatest sounding headphone in the world, bar none! A few match it, & those are waaaay more expensive & still NO BETTER. I'm a Stax fan, I've heard most of the HiFiMan's & Audeze's & Focal's & Sennheiser's, & these aren't even my first pair of Koss electrostatics (I also own a 1970 pair of ESP/6's. And they STILL work!). Regardless, I've never had break-in "leakage" noise with any other Electrostatic headphones I own or have owned, save some sketchy British electret PWB headphones I bought new in the early 80's. Likely a microscopic piece of lint got into the element & needed to be shaken around & out. Or, the conductive diaphragm coating is a bit quirky & takes a bit of break-in for it's resistivity to even out (a problem with Martin-Logan & Audiostatic speakers: when they get old, though!). Whatever the cause though, Koss really needs to figure this one out & improve their customer service. Not having spares for 3 whole months is very poor production planning. Or alot of similarly "defective" headphones that are unnecessarily depleting both their inventories as well as their profits...

Nov 20, 2019

DwarfWight

Apr 19, 2020

noapphave you considered it might be a ground issue with whatever you're plugging it into? Electro stats use quite a powerful amplifier and will really pronounce any small ground issue there is where other headphones you'd hear nothing. Consider that it may not be the the actual product if it was fixed and still had the issue.

Apr 19, 2020

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