šŸ”¶ Koss KPH 40 Utility

These just showed up today.

Even over the first hour of listening I’ve noticed some significant break-in (I’ve heard enough change that I suspect there’s going to be quite a bit of part-to-part variation in sound until there’s enough break-in). So I’m not going to comment too much on sound, other than to say my observations are generally in line with @DagoRed - least favorite of the Koss lineup, and something odd in the ~5k range.

Something very noticeable is with regard to the USB-C DAC cable. Playing from the Qobuz app sounds 'meh. Not horrible, but nothing really great. Switching over to UAPP app is an entirely different story. Depth, detail, tonality, all much better (the ~5k issue is tamed as well, making me wonder about DSP). The sound is closer to what I’m hearing on my desktop setup (Jot2/BF2 and G111/Revolution). The flavor of those setups comes through for sure, so not an apples-to-apples comparison. But with the USB-C DAC cable, running on UAPP, it’s respectable - on par with the ddhifi TC35b running from UAPP. From the stock Qobuz app it sounds much worse than the TC35b. It must need the ā€œbit-perfectā€ magic :slight_smile:

The addition of the in-line controls / microphone make it a nice ā€œside gradeā€ to the TC35b.

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