My Klipsch Image Review

[justin_tx_16]

This is purely a review of the product, not the sound. I want to dedicate more time to listening to these headphones before I post that review. This is an examination of the physical qualities of the headphones and its contribution to the total sound, later on.

Klipsch Image Headphones

Physical Impressions

Headphone jack design is fantastic. The jack fits perfectly into an iPhone without requiring the extra adapter and blends into the 2G iPod Nano seamlessly. Not requiring this extra connection is a simple way to reduce resistance which would count against the sensitivity of these headphones with the already comparatively low powered headphone jack of the iPhone. The ends of the cables meet the headphones and the jack with an abrupt end. Just as the headphone jack and the earphones themselves fade away into their enclosures, it would be a nice touch if the cables entered into the headphones via molded rubber/plastic. Sloping off to nothing is appealing to the eye, prevents shorting out as it extends stress joints and in this case, might simply allow a slightly thicker cable to be used

The cables themselves are long enough that you can put your portable audio player in a jacket or pant’s pocket but not so long as you get tangled in its mess. The cables are a bit thin for my taste. I’m not a big high-end speaker cable pushes but just from my experience, a little thicker cables would be nice. The quality of the cables appears to touch and eye to be of lower quality than the sound they carry. Appearances aren’t everything but I do worry about these cables catching on something, being caught in a door jam, rolled over by a desk chair, whatever random anomaly and becoming severely damaged.

I have gone through several sets of headphone cables between my Shure and my Ultimate Ear cans. The original cables of the Ultimate Ear ifi 5 Pro’s were just slightly thinner than the Image with less rubber around the wires, they shorted out in three months. They were replaced with heavier duty cables by UEs but the density of the new cables (the wires and the cables were at least twice as thick) caused the Y-joint to short out as well as where the cables meet the headphones. My Shure I2C-M cables feel indestructible at the sacrifice of looking like power cables! There really is a happy medium out there. Overall though, I’m happy with the cables (though the right cable is about 1/2” longer than the left, as expected with a prototype).

The Y-joint in the middle of the cable, beyond not fading into the thickness of the cables, is fantastic. It does it’s simple job well. The stress reliefs are key and I’m glad to see them on there. The stress points on the headphone jack and the earphones seem to work very well. I have never actually seen a solid piece work so well, especially when compared to the accordion style options out there (much better than with the Custom 3’s headphone jack).

The earphones’ copper color is complementary to the overall package, a little richer, darker copper would better match the Reference line. The way the black blends into the copper is a great touch and the lettering underneath designating R and L is still easy enough to read without scaring the otherwise fantastic finish. The copper enclosure feels incredibly durable, the best I’ve felt. A pair of Ultimate Ear’s I once had managed to crack at the junction of the headphone and the silicon earpiece. This certainly won’t happen with the Image. The tight fit of the earpieces is a welcomed feature. I cannot count the number of times my E3c earpieces found themselves lodged into my ears without a headphone connected. The UE’s are even worse at this once they have aged a bit. A wax guard really should be added. The pair I have had the left earphone full of wax. I at first thought something was wrong with the balance of my source. After verifying my source I checked the headphones and saw the culprit. A careful use of the in-ear-canal headphone cleaning tools fixed this.

A short note on the wax guards... One of the ear pieces has a wax guard in it, unfortunately this wax guard easily slips through the earpiece, I can see it working its way out of the earpiece and down into the ear canal. Shure has been using an adhesive screen on their headphones for a while. You typically get a set of six with the headphones and just adhere them to the edge of the earphone before putting on the earpieces and you’re good to go. They seem to stay on even with frequent earpiece changes.

The earpieces themselves work better than any I have used. Their oval shape is genius and the rubber’s texture way improved over the dry feeling UE’s and the overly soft Shure and Etymotic headphones. UE headphone earpieces need to be moistened to get a decent fit into your ears and the Shure and Etymotic headphone earpieces slide out too easily. Perfect harmony with the Images, smooth and soft enough to make a solid feel with comfort and yet textured enough to stay in, even while jogging. They also don’t require you to pull and tug on your ear to get them in.

Sadly I get a whistling noise when walking with the Image’s, especially with the single flanged earpieces. Pushing the headphones deeper into the ear canal only slightly helps this problem. It’s a pretty big problem to me, walking through the long hallways at work I have to turn up the volume to cover this up.

Sound isolation with the double flanged earpieces is top notch, disturbingly good actually. I spent two hours working on a project at a noisy cafe and at a normal listening volume entire Kaldi’s Coffee patronage disappeared behind a curtain of sound. This is better than the triple flanged earpieces of my Shure and Etymotic models. Truth be told, the sound isolation is so seamless and natural, I didn’t even realize how effective it was until this evening.

Leaving work and listening to Lara St. John - Bach the Concert Album, jogging up four flights of stairs. I am doing my typical wandering of the garage looking for my car, as per usual I hit the “Panic” button to sound my car’s alarm. I hear nothing. It wasn’t until the end of Concerto No 2 in E Major Part 1 before the flashing of my car’s lights caught my attention. It seems that the comfort, sound quality and noise isolation were all so good, I forgot I had headphones on, despite hearing the Allegro. THese guys blocked out my car’s horn only a few yards away. The horn is 110dB... By the way.

Turn these headphones up a bit and you can’t even hear your own voice. Often with these in-ear headphones the outside world is silenced while the user’s voice appears louder. I could only barely hear myself singing (as loud as I could) to Rufus Wainwright’s interpretation of Hallelujah.

When using these headphones, I can’t help but imagine them as an iPod implant into my mind. They simply disappear and until you turn on your source, the are inperceptible to your conscious. From their miniscule dimensions to their imaging and transparency (while not perfect, impressive considering their size), they evanesce.

evanesce |?ev?'nes|
verb [ intrans. ] poetic/literary
pass out of sight, memory, or existence.
ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from Latin evanescere, from e- (variant of ex-) ‘out of’ + vanus ‘empty.’

You literally forget you are wearing these things, it’s truly remarkable. I can’t wait to continue listening to these in different situations, especially on my flights to Texas and New York in the next few weeks.

Sound Review to come.

[Professor Thump]

Justin,

Thanks for the review. I can't wait to hear your audio analysis. What other headphones have you listend to or own?

[TheEvan]

I love mine.

They passed the 'traveling companion' test with flying colors, accompanying me to Tanzania and back. Even with the iffy sound on the in-flight systems they sound fantastic with rich but not boomy/thick basses to balance the sparkling highs. As Justin says, they really disappear. Much to my consternation I missed coctails becasue I never heard the stewardess asking me what I wanted. You can really hear intimate music (eg: classical guitar) in a very noisy environment without having to turn up the volume unreasonably.