Reviews for Klipsch Image S4i Earphones with Microphone

The sound quality was excellent w/r/t both the headphones and the mic, and one set of the earbuds was a perfect fit, but within eight months the wiring connecting the headphones to the cords had begun to come apart, and at about a year after purchase, the sound in the left earbud is low and barely intelligible, as if I'm listening to a transistor radio wrapped in a heavy blanket, while my right ear is getting blasted. It's even more annoying on phone conversations, so I'm currently using the awful iPhone earphones while I try to decide whether it make sense to spend $100 every year to buy a new set of these (from the other reviews on here, it seems that these simply don't last longer than a year). Something in me just will not allow me to spend $200 or $300 for headphones and a mic, but that looks like the next step. #annoyed

The sound quality of this earphone is very good for music. When listening to video, television I can hear voices on right and background on left - can be distracting. I have a small ear canal and these fit well, seldom fall out when I am working out on treadmill. After one year, I am experiencing problems at the connection point. I have to wiggle the wire to get sound, sometimes it works and other times it is a problem. I will have to purchase new ear phones soon and do not plan to spend this much on ear phones that only last 12 months.

I decided it was time to upgrade to something new when my Apple earbuds started shocking me during workouts. My must haves were: improved sound quality over the Apple buds, comfort, built in microphone and inline controls for the iPhone, and a secure, comfortable fit for running. I listened to the Klipsch S4i's in the Apple Store and thought I'd give them a shot based on a decent first impression and the overwhelmingly positive reviews. However, my 1.5 week trial with them was fairly disappointing. I am not an audiophile by any means, but I was hard pressed to find a huge improvement in sound with the Klipsch earphones over the factory earbuds. Yes, I burned them in. I tried the different-sized tips and fitted them as deeply as possible. I also tried various audio files to make sure that it wasn't just poor quality stuff that I was feeding them. While they do offer decent clarity, they are not 3-4x better as the price would seem to indicate. The in-line controls were intuitive and worked well on my iPhone but froze up for my girlfriend on hers. The microphone seemed to work ok except for in windy conditions. The wires transmit a tremendous amount of cord noise to the earphones. They were unacceptably noisy during work-outs (even with the cord clip and over-the-ear insertion). I also had problems with these popping out of my ears while running--though not as bad as with the Apple buds. All in all, I could not swallow the rather average performance for the price paid. If they were $40-50, I might have considered keeping them, but I returned them and bought a set of M6P's from MEElectronics for ~$20. My "must haves" are now fulfilled, and both my ears and my wallet are happy.

Both broke in same area (where wire transitions to it's thinnest moving away from headphone jack). There's no excuse for this as designing headphones with slightly thicker wires wouldn't detract at all, but would only help.

had these for less than a year and my biggest complaint is the poor craftsmanship. cheap cable housing detached from the base of the 1/8th inch jacket and is now exposing wires that have effected the otherwise amazing sound. the ear molds constantly fall off the earbuds and the protective cabling around the earbud has torn apart as well.

i switched from Shure to Klipsch because of the sound quality, which is actually a little more warm and bottom heavy. the Shures seemed a bit less colorful in sound.

in conclusion, i'd pass on these since they just don't hold up in quality to Shures or Etymotics.