Klipsch Image S4
I picked these badboys up a couple weeks ago, and it’s about time to give them a review.
The first impression I got from these ‘phones, and the impression I continue to get is BASS. Klipsch touts them as having ‘enhanced bass’, and they aren’t kidding. Bass guitar in your rock, wub in your dubstep and that glorious upright bass in your jazz, they’re all going to pop out at you. I even ran it through some sine tone sweeps, and I’m confident that they went outside of the human pitch range before they quit (Klipsch says 10Hz-19kHz, and I’d say they did at least that). That bass response didn’t seem to interfere with the mids or the trebles though, they’re still quite nice and sharp (fyi, this article is aimed at car stereos, but I use it as a good jumping-off point to test any speakers).
That nice bass is probably a function of the other selling point of these headphones; the ear tips. They’re oval shape, and supposedly specifically made to fit the human ear canal. While that means you have to put a little effort to making sure they’re aligned correctly, and you have to special-order them if you ever manage to lose or tear one, they DO work as advertised. While they aren’t actively noise-canceling, with your music at a reasonable volume, you won’t be hearing anything else (including cars and forklifts etc, so be careful).
The other thing that the oval ear-tips do for you, and I think the most striking feature of the S4′s (and several of Klipsch’s other models), is that they are comfortable. Like, really comfortable. These things fit in your ears so well that they’re a little disconcerting at first. With no feeling of anything in/on your ears and the really sharp sound, it’s almost like having the band inside your head sometimes.
As far as durability goes, they seem well made, and the cord has several different stress relief measures to keep it safe; including a right-angled jack, which I haven’t seen in forever. The only thing I would note about their construction is that the cord seems to get really stiff in cold weather, which is annoying, and could lead to accelerated wear I suppose.
Overall, these headphones are pretty boss. At $80 they’re not in impulse-buy territory, but they sound great, feel like they’re made to last long enough for me to get my money’s worth, and they’re comfortable enough to make not care if they last or not.
