Final Thoughts
Koss has come a long way and I hope they continue onward with their excellent Bluetooth technology. I want to see a small revision of this headphone next year, something with some angled drivers or pads as well as a boost on the bass tuning to fill things out a bit. Crisp sound is great, but not at the expense of a flat sound stage depth experience. Linear and balanced Bluetooth sound seekers should opt for this Koss BT540i over any other $199 and under BT headphone that I am even aware of, top tier for BT headphones without question, but from an audiophile’s sound standpoint it will not satiate the typical audio enthusiast with some experience in the field. This is a good Bluetooth headphone that sounds nice with even with dirt cheap Bluetooth dongles like that AZiO USB BT device, no expensive rig needed to max out the potential of the unit either via a wired connection, which sounded virtually the same as when it was paired with only the BT dongle or devices I had on hand for this review.
If you want a more balanced sound via a Bluetooth headphone, I would recommend this Koss BT540i before any other. Koss is heading in the right direction and this headphone only needs a small amount of tweaking to make it very good. Right now, I would consider this only a solid buy if you want a Bluetooth headphone. If not, there are plenty of other great $199 headphones out there without Bluetooth that sound better. I am impressed by the excellent sound quality this headphone offers via its Bluetooth function. Koss has done a great job with all the Bluetooth functionality, but should probably opt for improving the driver quality of the headphone a bit to compare with some of Sony’s latest Bluetooth headphones of the same price.
Price: $199
http://www.koss.com/en/products/headphones/full_size_headphones/BT540i__BT540i
Frequency Response 10-25,000 Hz
Impedance 38 ohms
Sensitivity 100 dB SPL
Cord Straight, Single Entry, 4.5ft
