Design and features:The earphones have integrated microphones and volume, music player, and call connect/disconnect controls for paired Bluetooth devices. The ATH-CKS5TW, is claimed to be water resistant and comes with four pairs of ear pieces in various sizes, two pairs of removable ear bowl supports in various sizes, a USB charging cable, and a charging cradle/recharger battery/carrying case that the manufacturer claims can be used to recharge the earphone batteries up to 2 times between its own charges. The free Audio Technica Connect app download for Apple or Android mobile devices shows battery level, can be used to change various settings such as turning off the voice announcements, changing the function of the controls, and can be used to help locate the earphones if they are misplaced..
Sound quality: We found the ATH-CKS5TW delivers sound quality that falls in the Fair range, meaning that it has sonic shortcomings that leave a lot to be desired when listening to music but don't rule it out for dialog and communication. The overall sound can be summarized as bassy and muffled. Bass (as in bass drums, bass guitars, stand-up bass, etc.) goes deep, but is prominent and boomy, the impact is a bit excessive, and depending on the program material, can somewhat overwhelm the midrange. The midrange (voices, guitars, horns, etc.) is fairly even, but hazy, somewhat soft and congested (think sonic traffic jam), and a bit grainy. The treble (cymbals, the upper range of violins, etc.) is subdued. The sound of this model has a decent sense of liveliness and it does a decent job of recovering the room ambience of a recording (the sense of the acoustic space in which the audio program that's being listened to was recorded) in the midrange tonal region, but otherwise the room ambience is lacking and the sound is closed-in (sound-wise it's obvious you have something plugging your ears).
Comfort: Our testers found that this model was clunkier than the typical earphone. While they don't produce as much of a sense of pressure in the ear canal opening as typical in-ear models, some users may still find them uncomfortable. Regardless of earbowl size, users will probably find that this model stays in place with no problems for casual use and that they are very stable even during vigorous head movement, but they give the impression that they are unstable because they feel like they stick out too far out of the ears.
