Koss Corporation is an American company that designs and manufactures headphones. Headquartered in

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, since 1958, the company invented the first high fidelity stereophones. Koss continues to design and manufacture headphones and audio accessories.

History

John C. Koss founded the J.C. Koss Hospital Television Rental Company in 1953. After a short time Koss was looking for new ideas, and partnered with Martin Lange to eventually develop a stereo headphone. Based in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee i ...

, United States, in 1991 Koss Audio & Video Electronics started producing and selling consumer electronics products as a separate company in Hazelwood, Missouri, United States. The Koss family owns more than 75% of the firm. Having only a high school education, John C. Koss worked with Lange, an engineer, to develop the headphone that launched the company almost by accident, as they came upon the headphone idea as a result of an attempt to market a portable phonograph. What made this product unique was the privacy switch feature, which gave listeners the opportunity to listen to the first Koss SP/3 Stereophones. Initially, the product's purpose was to demonstrate to consumers the high-fidelity stereo sound of the portable phonograph. Prior to this time, headphones had only been used for communications purposes. In 1958, the design was debuted at a hi-fi trade show in Milwaukee, and audiences were approving of the design. Soon after the trade show, Koss went into business manufacturing and marketing stereophones from his basement apartment. The technology was imitated by competing manufacturers, which set the design and aesthetics of headphones for years to come. In the early 1970s, Koss worked out of two nearby locations. One was Koss TV-Rental, which also did electronics and musical instrument repairs. The second was the main facility two blocks to the east. At this time, Koss pioneered the high-end "electro-static" "ES series" headphone market. These headphones set the standard for wide-range frequency response. Being very durable, they required service