The Microsoft Surface Earbuds have only been on the market for a few weeks, but they are already the subject of much controversy. One forum user is feeling the pain of being an early adopter, hearing "white hissing" and popping noises from the new $199 headphones.

On May 14, Microsoft forum user V.Vaicys posted about the problem, saying, "There seems to be a noticeable problem, is it just my pair?" The noise lasts about 2-3 seconds and occurs even when the earphones are paired and no sound is playing.

Three days later, a Microsoft agent named Janette_Z, who moderated the forum, informed people that Microsoft was addressing the issue: "We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the popping/hissing noise from the Surface Earbuds. We have reported this issue to our internal team. We will contact you as soon as we have an update on this issue."

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The original poster is not the only one having this problem; Benkly wrote, "I am an electronic engineer and am having the exact same problem with my earphones and this hissing noise. This sound should be coming from the amplifier built into the earphones. As soon as I turn this amp on, I get this hissing noise. It sounds like a poorly tuned amplifier".

There are many other disgruntled users in the forum thread; AC360 (assuming he is not Anderson Cooper, the silver fox) writes, "I will return these. I can't stand the sound quality. ... I stutter all the time when using airbuds headphones when watching videos or listening to music. When I switch to headphones, the stuttering goes away, but the sound quality is terrible."