AudioBill

Hi! Thanks for the confirmation between your fake and real set of S4's. I guess it is just my ears and the way the medium sized silicone earbud meshes with my ears then. But its odd that I can put these S4's into my ears and get a great air tight seal and they sound less bright that way. But when I do that insert and twist trick something just clicks and the sound seems to loose the bass and brighten up (meaning the sound becomes more balanced). odd. Must just be my particular situation and fit. I just want to say that I do find these earphones a bit on the bassy side and they don't sound quite as open and 3 dimensional as my other earphones. they remind me of a set of old Koss earphones that I bought about 10 years ago. Very bassy. That insert and twist trick for me only works with the medium silicone earbuds. I tried the skinny set now and they don't click like the medium set in my ears. Although they do insert deeper into my ear canal when I perform that up twist and then the seal gets stronger and the deep bass kicks in again. At their most balanced setting in my ears though, as an avid audiophile, the sound of these earphones is not the best and I do not think they are worth $80 really. Sorry to say that. I own many many sets of high end headphones also to compare them to (Grado RS-1, Sennheiser 600, AKG 701's, yes even Bose "On-Ear", Bose Tri-Ports, Grado SR-60, SR80, Koss porta-pro, Koss clip on's) They all have a more balanced and open sound than I am hearing from these Klpsch S4's. I will let them break in for a 100 hours and see what I think of them then. Update_2: I just tried the S4's with the large silicone earbuds and now the sound is much more improved. I guess the fit to my ear is better with these large plugs! So the earphones do sound better now that I've listened to them again. They still do have what I perceive as an elevated bass emphasis but overall the upper midrange and highs are coming through better with the large plugs for me. So I will rate them excellent sounding now. I guess it is all in how you get them to fit and mesh with your ear canal without blocking out the sound hole. Okay, they are worth the $80 I spent on them. :-)

I wish to chime in on this topic on Klipsch Image S4 earphones by saying that I also decided to buy a pair of S4 earphones after researching and reading all the rave reviews about them. I had placed my order to buy them at $79.99 with free shipping from newegg.com and then after that I saw them listed on ebay for $49.00. I felt cheated at that point and was wishing I would have just waited and done more price searching. But now after stumbling upon this forum thread about conterfeit fakes being sold out on the market, I feel a better. However, I am wondering based on comments from a few users of the alledged counterfeit fakes about way mushy boomy bass and muddy mids and no highs, if they might not have their earphones properly inserted into their ears. Why do I say this? Because I just received my S4 earphones from newegg and when I first plugged them in, I experienced the same exact mushy boomy loose sounding bass and muddy mids and highs. I was concerned about the sound I was hearing. I let it burn in for a few hours to see if it would improve, but it did not improve one bit. Then I opened the instructions booklet that came with it and saw the pictorials showing that you should plug in the arphones into your ear hole, then it shows that you should rotate (twist) the earphone while it is plugged into your ear upward about a quarter of a turn. This it seems to depict is so that it better positions the wire to wrap over the top of your ears for a more secure mounting (they say its for sports mode). While I tried this technique, I stuck each earphone into each ear and then rotated them as shown in the pictorial. Wala! all of a sudden I heard and felt each earphone seem to "click" into place and the sound became much brighter and clear (as in normal) and the mushy booming bass disappeared. The earphones seem to have a rotating notch switch built into them somehow where you have to plug it in ear and then rotate or twist or pivot them in place until you hear them click into that notch and the sound all of a sudden opens up bright and clear and the bass settled down. With that said, I think I do have legitimate Klipsch S4's from newegg at full price of $79.99 paid. So if I heard such lousy mushy boomy loose bass and no mids and highs with this legitimate set at first try, then maybe all of you who heard this with your alledged S4 fakes can see if that "stick in ear, rotate upwards trick" works on the fakes too? If so, then maybe they are not fakes after all but rather Klipsch using different suppliers manufacturing the S4's? Anyway, I just wanted to ask Amy (or Klipsch representative) about this insert and twist earphone instruction to see if it is valid or not. I definitely notice and hear a drastic change in the sound of the S4's when I use this technique. I must also say that if this is the proper intended way to mount them in users ears, it is not too clear and not well documented in the instructions. It should say so in print that you must do that twist when inserted in your ears to get proper sound quality. But again, I don't even know if this is the way Klipsch intended the design to work or its just some fluke quirk that I stumbled upon. All I can say is it makes a big difference in the sound of the S4 earphones that I have. Can all you owners try this out and see if your S4 earphones behave the same way and report back here? Thanks!

Update: I ordered another IFI system direct from Klipsch Sales online for $199.99 with discount coupon. 1) I have notice that the price for these Klipsch IFI systems have been dropping. Circuit City Stores lowered their price to $249.95 about 2 weeks ago and I also saw them on sale for only $199.99 at a local BJ's Wholesale Club. Too bad I had already had ordered my IFI from Klipsch online. Even though it was same lower price of $199.99, I had to pay about $32 for Fed Ex shipping charge plus my local sales tax which brought the total price paid up to $250. If I would have just saw it at my local BJ's Wholesale Club sooner I could have saved on the Fed Ex shipping costs and had the IFI system home sooner to play with. Okay, that's just to let folks know about the fairly big discounting that Klipsch is giving on these speakers now... are they discontinuing them soon and newer replacement models coming out? I hope that if the new model has a new and improved remote control that it will be compatible with the current (old) IFI system(s). 2) The other point wanted to make is that this second IFI system that I have now seems to work okay (so far) with my daughter's HP 40G IPOD without the quirky lock-up's, sputtering and stalls that were experienced on the first set of IFI system. 3) The speakers sound absolutely smooth and accurate. The vocals that these speakers reproduce from streaming PC audio, IPOD, WAV or MP3 recordings is absolutely imppressive and so close to a "life like" balance that I am very impressed. Let me humbly also say that I am an avid audiophile and know hi quality sound as opposed to the "in your face", sensational, boosted bass and treble sound. The Klipsch IFI sub bass is strong for an 8" woofer and does seem to be tuned for a lower frequency region and not the "boom, boom, punch" region that many people identify with strong powerful puchy bass. It is quite capable. I do notice that there is a slight depression in that boom/slam bass region but that may be just my room placement and it is not that bad really. The treble is just fine, it does not blare out and fatigue me with harshness. It is very smooth and balanced. So far the speakers are sounding wonderful and there is no "buyer regret" when it comes to the sound quality, however there is a feeling of "buyer regret" when it comes to the IPOD dock and remote control capabilites since it is a simple dock and remote that won't allow you to control the IPOD functions other than on/off and change tracks and volume. Also the shape of the remote is terrible as it is hard to discern which end is which and you fumble with the buttons. Should improve this with at least a different shape with blind people in mind (no, I am not blind. but if you accomodate worst case like this, you will cover all people). Just a suggestion, but now I am starting to ramble, so I better sign off for now. Great sysytem. I highly recommend for great "stereo only" sound at the lowered price of $199.99. Just hope it lasts and does not have amp or electronics problems like my Creative Labs Megaworks 510D 5.1 PC speaker system did. If anything changes with regards to reliability as time progresses I will try to update again. So far the speakers start sounding smoother and smoother (as in less bright edge on the highs or upper midrange region) as the speakers "break-in".

To update my dilema, here... The system sounded great, but daughter did not want to deal with the quirks and also it was too big and complex for her to set up on her limited space shelf. So I wound up returning it to the store for a full refund. Jay your suggestion on how to get around the quirks is appreciated, but it does not solve theproblem for Klipsch and also if anyone wanted to just plug it in via stereo mini jacks, then why the heck buy something like this with a remote control and docking station. That is one of the main reasons why I bought the dang thing - for the remote control and docking feature. Anyway, no sweat, I no longer have it. But one thing I can vouch for... it was one of the better balanced sounding little 2.1 speaker system I have ever heard. The bass was indeed impressive for the 8" subwoofer and better than my Creative Labs 5.1 speaker's 8" subwoofer at pounding out the deeper bass notes and at higher loudness levels. If they sold this style setup as a stand alone stereo speaker system with normal rca inputs and selectors, for less money and without the added cost of the Apple IPOD crap, I would consider buying it again. I don't feel comfortable buying the current PC speakers from Klipsch due to the reports of quality control problems. Creative Labs 5.1 speakers I have are not that reliable either. The hot subwoofer amp goes intermitent at times and stops working. So they all really should consiuder separating the amps from the small enclosed spaces of the little subwoofer boxes.Anyway, gone way off topic here. sorry. Best to all. It is a very good sounding system but I just could not deal with the quirks with the IPOD lock ups.

I just returned an Altec IM7 IPOD boom box speaker system because the door mechanism latch broke and failed to close after less than 30 days of ownership and even less than 30 days of usage! I picked up the Klipsch IFI speaker system when I saw they (Circuit City Stores) had it in stock and on sale for $299.99. Anyway to answer your question, YES, after I got it home and all hooked up, I experienced problems with the HP Apple IPOD 40GB model that was used in the dock. I could not figure out what the heck was happening. The IPOD just started stalling, stopping, skipping and sputtering on music songs that played just fine before the Klipsch IFI was used. So, this threw me into a troubleshooting spree where I tried updating the software with the latest Apple updater. Firmware on the IPOD was originally V3.01 and now it is at V3.1.1. Result? Absolutely no difference at all. Still get sporadic skipping and long delays waiting to change tracks using the IFI dock and remote control. I have tried resetting the IPOD dozens of times over, even went so far as to do a full RESTORE function using the latest Apple Update of Jan 10, 2006. Still the IPOD functions sporadically with long time delays changing tracks and skipping in the middle of tracks as if the hard drive or file were bad. I too was suspecting something with the Klipsch IFI dock plug interface or electrical compatibility with the IPOD. Maybe noisey voltage rails in the power supply causing glitches? I'd hate to have to lug this heavy set back in for another refund or exchange at the store. Anyone know what is up with this bugginess? I really cannot say if it is the IPOD or the Klipsch IFI interface at this point, but the IPOD was seemingly working just fine before inserting it into the IFI dock and using the remote control voltages on it. Any Klipsch engineers on this forum that can shed some light? Please don't say update the IPOD, as I have just finished my extensive rework of the IPOD including entering its secret service mode and performing all the IPOD tests. The hard drive scan test PASSED, as did all else. I even wiped the drive and reloaded all the song tracks (497 songs). Granted some of my daughter's tracks may be bad or skip. but not to the extent that all these bad symptoms keep occurring with using it in the IFI dock with remote control. At times upon first starting the IPOD would seem to play fine and respond to track changes quickly and play reliably. But after some time and ususally with alot of remote control key presses, the IPOD gets into that corrupted state and starts choking again, skipping, sputtering and long delays between functions. What the heck? Hope there is a fix for this.