[Elecraft] Koss Headsets for the K3 (Was: Re: Yamaha CM500

[Lu Romero]

Gary:

I own both a Koss SB40 and two Yamaha CM500'ds.

The Koss and the Yamaha are exactly identical, save for one
thing... The microphone capsule.

The Koss SB40 has a dynamic capsule while the Yamaha CM500
has a electret condenser capsule.  Other than that, the
headsets are exactly identical in every detail except for
the name.  Probably made in the same Chinese jobber.

But here is where the simialarity ends:  The Yamaha
electrect capsule is flat and can be made to sound really
great on the K3.  The Koss dynamic capsule is all bass, very
mushy, and has low output.  Even engaging the K3 equalizers
and tweaking a lot, I could not make my SB40 sound very good
at all.  The capsule just sounds ugly.

The fix for this is to remove the two screws that hold the
capsule on the SB40's boom and remove the offending
microphone that looks surprisingly like a cheap Chinese
dynamic earphone (its actually the same exact size as a IPod
headset element and looks identical!) and replace it.  In my
case, I had an old Heil BM-5 with a bad earpiece but a
perfectly good DX4 capsule.  I removed the plastic mic
holder from the rigid Heil boom, and with a slight widening
of the boom inlet with a Dremel tool, it fits right on to
the SB40 boom!  Solder up the existing wires from the Koss
mic and you have a wonderfully comfortable headset with a
very flexible boom that, in my case, works great on my
secondary Kenwood TS570 rig.

Of course, YMMV, but it works for me here!

Lu - W4LT
Using the "AL/K-Line":  K3/P3/ALS600/MFJ998 
Al Kaline: 1960's Detroit Tigers Slugger

---------------------------------

Message: 20
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 22:33:06 -0500
From: Gary K9GS <garyk9gs at wi.rr.com>
Subject: [Elecraft] Koss Headsets for the K3 (Was: Re:
Yamaha CM500
    Headset)www
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Message-ID: <4F62B472.6020005 at wi.rr.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

An update:

I stopped by the Koss Factory Store today.  I looked at the
SB49 first.  
(The SB45 is identical to the SB49 but without the volume
control in the 
cord).  I didn't really like the way the SB49 fit.  It's a
very 
subjective thing but comfort was what I was looking for. 
The other 
thing I didn't like was the flexible boom for the microphone
was very 
"whippy".  It was almost like a wet noodle.  Not good.....

Next I looked at the SB40.  The fit was great and very
comfortable for 
the 5 minutes I wore it.  The mic boom was stiffer too.  The
SB40 has a 
dynamic mic element.  I ended up buying the SB40.  The price
was $39.00 
plus sales tax.

I was all set to buy a Yamaha CM500 but I really wanted to
see how they 
fit first.  I looked at a couple places and couldn't find a
local store 
that had the CM500.  For this reason I look at Koss.  The
other thing 
Koss has going for it is the limited lifetime warranty. 
Being that I 
live near the factory this is a big advantage.  Second is
that I've 
owned other Koss products and have always been very happy
with them.

As I said I've never used the Yamaha CM500 but the Koss SB40
looks very 
similar.

I'm also kind of a headphone junkie.  With the K3 I figure
that most 
modern headsets have much more performance (frequency
response, etc) 
than one needs for communication. So they are all pretty
much up to the 
task.  Same for the microphone.  With the TX and RX Eq
features of the 
K3 I decided to concentrate on fit and comfort.  I think
that juist 
about any headset and microphone can be made to sound good.

I haven't used the SB40's yet but will report back once I've
played with 
them a bit.  Here's the link to the Koss website:

http://www.koss.com/en/products/headphones/communication_headsets