Two months ago I promised to talk about my Koss pocket equalizer, and I never did.
In short: it’s good! It doesn’t quite provide as much bass as the full bass boost function on my CD player, but then there’s not as much bass in an mp3 as there is on a CD. With the treble and midrange set at like 80% and the bass at 200%, though, I find the audio quality significantly improved. It works fine with rechargeable batteries; since my Shuffle is already rechargeable, that means a significant savings over my CD player (which ate only alkaline). I profess myself satisfied.
The thing is actually bigger than the Shuffle, as expected, but they still fit in my breast pocket together. There’s a little hiss, but it’s only detectable in quiet places. More significant is the fact that unlike my headphones and mp3 player, the equalizer is unshielded, and evidently contains metal elements long enough to pick up some kind of radio. This usually isn’t a problem, except a) near power lines, b) near big flat buildings that bounce lots of radio at you, and c) when my cell phone goes off. It really sucks when my cell phone goes off. It does the DAT-DT-DT-DAT bursts of white noise, like a hideous ringtone just for me! At least I don’t miss calls anymore.
Someday I’ll get a real mp3 player with an integrated equalizer, but until then the Koss equalizer is worth its annoyances. One thumb up.