Great Sound, Frustrating Setup
Disclosure: I'm a huge Klipsch fan. I bought a pair of KG4s in 1989 and Heresy IIs a decade ago. As an audiophile, the bright highs and punchy bass has never failed to make my ears happy, and the no-nonsense styling means they have looked handsome in every iteration of apartment and home I've lived in for over 30 years. So I was very excited to purchase the T5s as a replacement for a pair of Sennheiser earbuds that I had misplaced. The only thing that gave me pause was seeing the price - why did they fall from $200 to $60? But I reminded myself that consumers buy products for social status more than quality these days (see: everyone walking around with weird white sticks poking out of their ears, lol) so I crossed my fingers and went for it.
I'm so glad I did! The bass response is excellent, the highs are bright without being brittle, there is perceptible sound staging (in earbuds!) and they pair with my phone the moment one of the two earbuds is removed from the gorgeous, Zippo-inspired charging case. Very lightweight and comfortable, snug in-ear fit and easy for friends to hear me clearly on phone calls.
With all of that said (as other reviewers have noted), setup is not for the faint fo heart. There are three hurdles to overcome: updating the firmware of each earbud, pairing the two together, and pairing the system with your devices. In all three steps, I had to try multiple times to get it to work correctly - and I'm a tech-savvy person who works with computers all day. If you are someone who gets easily frustrated or struggles with tech, it may be very frustrating.
To update the firmware, you need to follow a set of steps with the Klipsch app on your phone, and it involves a series of power-on, power-off steps, then unpairing with your phone, then updating the firmware, one bud at a time. Initially, I was able to upgrade the Right earbud, but not the Left. In order to try again, I had to factory reset the earbuds and start over. Lame.
Pairing the two earbuds with one another wasn't difficult, but involved placing them in the case, making sure both were off, and tapping each earbud's button five times. Didn't work every time. But after a few tries, they were paired to one another, and you do not need to do this step again.
Pairing the earbuds to a phone was easy enough, but still was a bit futzy at first: one would pair, the other wouldn't. But again, once it was paired, I never had to worry about it again. Pairing with a computer was different: I would get a dialog box prompt asking for a code to pair the earbuds. There was no information about any such code in the manual, nor online. Eventually I tried '1234', which worked. But why did I need to figure that out myself?
BUT! Once I got the earbuds' firmware updated, paired to one another, and paired with my phone and computers, they were incredibly easy to use. They pair the moment they are removed from the case, they fit snugly, and sound great. Extremely lightweight with superb sound. The app allows a user to create a custom EQ profile, which makes them sound even better, and does not 'forget' the profile if the app is not running while you are listening. An incredibly good value.
TL;DR: Awesome Sound, Frustrating Setup.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
