What's in the Box
Headphones, data sheet.

Acoustically, the phones have good sensitivity, able to achieve ear-splitting volume levels from my SB Live before noticeable distortion. Particularly noticeable is the very clean, honest bass which should make both gamers and amateur musicians happy.

On the downside, the SB40's split "cowboy hat" cord gets twisted easily, quickly snugging up around your chin. The clothespin headband adjusters are a little hard to set precisely but when you do get them set, they stay put. The mic is a little less sensitive than some, needing to be positioned right next to the mouth to get good volume from non-boomy voices.

All in all, the SB40 appears to be well-built, and offers a good balance of comfort and performance for both multimedia and communications at a reasonable price.


Great sound, mediocre microphone   September 23, 2002
 24 out of 24 found this review helpful

...This is exactly what I was looking for in a gaming headset. It has the big stereo headphone type earpieces, and a mic to boot. I steered away from the Plantronics headsets only because of the small earpieces that push on your ears. If you play games for as long as I do, it doesn't matter how soft the earpieces are... if they rest on the cartilidge of your ear, you're going to get uncomfortable. These Koss SB-40 headphones rest around your ears creating an all day comfortable feel. They isolate outside sound better than any other headset I've used, and they have far superior sound to any *computer headset* I've used.

The only drawback is this. They are about as good as you come on sound for computer headsets, but the microphone leaves plenty to be desired. While the mic isn't horrible, it definitely doesn't perform as well as the higher end Plantronics headsets. The sound that is produced is exceptionally tinny, or muddy... much like a poor quality MP3 file. Not that you can't understand what is being said... it's just not as crystal clear as some headsets. The microphone is plenty sensitive, and is still better than the mic on a (lower priced) headset.

All in all for the price, this is an awesome headset. You can play games all day long without discomfort to your ears. In game chat is made easy. I would recommend this headset over the Plantronics line anyday, just for the sheer comfort it provides. I wish I could rate it 4.5 stars, because it warrants more than 4, but not quite 5.

If you're looking for the best sound and rarely have need for a microphone stick with stereo headphones and a table top mic. Sennheiser makes the best. Even their worst is better that most companies best. Good luck, see you in CS, or in BF1942. {NOC}DynaGlide.


not bad, not great   September 26, 2002
 15 out of 17 found this review helpful

these are pretty normal. The mic works great. By looking at the headphones you'd think that they'd be killer for multimedia and have a lot of bass and stuff. They don't. Even though they're huge, their pretty comfortable and they've got decent volume. The cord is long which is important when they have to reach behind your computer so you don't have your forhead pressed to the monitor.


Uncomfortable...microphone, decent sound   October 20, 2002
 13 out of 18 found this review helpful

Uncomfortable, below average microphone, decent sound...
Bass and treble is decent, but nothing extraordinary.
These headphones are BIG and the headband can be a bit uncomfortable -- especially after long use.
The microphone [is bad]. I played a few PC games using these headphones and almost no one could hear what I said (yes, all my PC settings were correct).

I wouldn't recommend these headphones. Look elsewhere.


Nice but   December 19, 2003
 8 out of 8 found this review helpful

Good clean loud if necessary sound but the headband is somewhat difficult to adjust plus the major flaw is the microphone. The mic doesn't seem to be amplified at all, low quality, whatever I had to adjust the Mic input to the max in XP to get it to pickup anything. Also I took apart the mic as well, the design is somewhat off, foam covering glued on one side, the other side had a removable foam filter covering the mic. The problem I notice was the foam was compressing the mic preventing it from picking up sound very well. I left the foam piece out. & after putting it back together the mic performance was fine. But be aware the mic signal seems to be pretty low. I tried running the mic through a Belkin KVM with nothing but static being picked up. With the mic hooked directly to the sound card along with the modifications it worked ok.