The Theory of Inverse Headphone Durability

[guitarsniper]

I've noticed that the less I pay for earbuds, the longer they last. I've paid thirty or forty US for decently good earbuds with the rubber tips and some pretty excellent passive noise cancelling and had them break on me after three or four months consistently, but when I paid like 10 bucks for a pair of cheap Sonys, they've now lasted me almost six. Therefore, I propose that the durability of a pair of headphones be defined as inversely proportional to their price. Thoughts?

 

[Supertegwyn]

I've owned a $40 set of Phillips for the last eight months now, and they are still going strong.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

I kind of agree. Official iPod headphones fall apart in your ears if it starts to rain a bit too much, or at least that happened to me -.- I then purchased £10 headphones that were better in quality and the manufacturers actually saw the benefit of not making their product out of sugar paper.

I also have my own theory about headphone cables. That is, the level of neatness of which you put them away at is directly proportional to the magnitude of the huge clusterfuck of tangled cables that come out. Also the magnitude of this clusterfuckage is affected by the amount of time you leave them, and how much the cables are moved while stored.

This gives:
Cable Clusterfuckage α Initial Neatness
Cable Clusterfuckage α Time stored
Cable Clusterfuckage α Distance Traveled while stored.

Giving:
CCF = k*IN*t*d
Where k is the nonsensical string constant, that allows cables or strings to tangle themselves without a living soul touching them.

 

[him over there]

The longest I've ever had a pair of headphones last is about 7 months. Sound quality is something I frankly don't see as a big deal so I et like the $9 no name brand ones.

One of the things is that all of my pairs always break because the wires get bent so they don't transmit electricity as well and they don't work. So any sort of durability isn't that much help because all the wires, the area that is the cause of failure, is the same. At least from what I have seen.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Brand makes a difference.

Skullcandy break almost instantly with crappy sound quality, while Sennheiser products have brilliant sound and build quality.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Err for me the earphones tend to break at the wire near the plug not the earbud. I guessing it cos I used to wrap them around my Ipod but still that is a bad design problem!

 

[Esotera]

Sennheiser master race reporting in. I've had a pair of exercise earphones for over two years now and they're much more durable than the regular mp3 kind, one is slightly bent out of place, but that's because I keep standing on them.

Moral of the story - spend £15 getting earphones that you wear on a frame, and they'll last longer and you can wash them in the sink to get rid of earwax/sweat.

 

[him over there]

Err for me the earphones tend to break at the wire near the plug not the earbud. I guessing it cos I used to wrap them around my Ipod but still that is a bad design problem!

One of the things is that simply moving the headphones will stretch the wire by the jack one way or another no matter how careful you are. If the wire is bent even a little it can render your headphones soundless because of wire kinks. There isn't a lot to stop this.

 

[JoJo]

For some reason my headphones last ages whatever brand they are, I've had my current ones for just a year but their predecessors (came with my first iPod) lasted me at-least four years if not more.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Err for me the earphones tend to break at the wire near the plug not the earbud. I guessing it cos I used to wrap them around my Ipod but still that is a bad design problem!

One of the things is that simply moving the headphones will stretch the wire by the jack one way or another no matter how careful you are. If the wire is bent even a little it can render your headphones soundless because of wire kinks. There isn't a lot to stop this.

Well I know a DIY sort of solution to that problem but it require some cutting and soldering tools I don't own.
Seriosuly this is a bad design flaw which someone should of invent a solution to that problem already! I had lost several good earphones (and a few expensive ones) because of that! Well ok it's their sinister/ lazy way for us consumers to simply buy a new one then to make an earphone were the wire don't break at all.

 

[him over there]

Err for me the earphones tend to break at the wire near the plug not the earbud. I guessing it cos I used to wrap them around my Ipod but still that is a bad design problem!

One of the things is that simply moving the headphones will stretch the wire by the jack one way or another no matter how careful you are. If the wire is bent even a little it can render your headphones soundless because of wire kinks. There isn't a lot to stop this.

Well I know a DIY sort of solution to that problem but it require some cutting and soldering tools I don't own.
Seriosuly this is a bad design flaw which someone should of invent a solution to that problem already! I had lost several good earphones (and a few expensive ones) because of that! Well ok it's their sinister/ lazy way for us consumers to simply buy a new one then to make an earphone were the wire don't break at all.

It's really a hard problem to solve without hampering usability. The thing is that all you have to do is bend a wire somewhat badly so it starts to fray. It's really easy to bend them or crease them because the wires are so thin so the wire, or at least the casing needs to be a lot thicker which isn't fun to lug around.

 

[A Satanic Panda]

Being cordless would almost certainly triple the lifetime of any headphones I owned. But other than that they all seem to die rather quickly on me.

That being said, my Turtle Beach Ear Force X3 has been used daily for 4+ years and they're still going strong. I had one issue with the lead coming from the battery that caused it to turn off and on randomly, but I easily fixed that.

This goes against OPs theory because they cost me around $100.

 

[bobmus]

In my experience they get slightly less durable and more wanky up to a certain price range, then after that they start increasing in quality again.
Some brands differ from the norm though...

 

[TheColdHeart]

I tend to buy headphones by brand over price now. I've had a few cheap and expensive pairs and as I tend to use my ipod a lot they get a fair thrashing and break eventually.

I've come to the conclusion that the headphones that come with an ipod are horrible and designed to break so you buy more at a silly price. Skullcandy earbuds are also an offender of poor build quality as every pair I've owned have broken within 3-4 months usually the cable gets damages so one (or both) earphone stop working.

Currently got some mid-priced Sennheisers and some Phillips and they are both doing great.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Sennheiser master race reporting in. I've had a pair of exercise earphones for over two years now and they're much more durable than the regular mp3 kind, one is slightly bent out of place, but that's because I keep standing on them.

Moral of the story - spend £15 getting earphones that you wear on a frame, and they'll last longer and you can wash them in the sink to get rid of earwax/sweat.

Got to agree on the sennheiser earbuds they can take some punishment and still sound great. Did manage to split the cables right down the middle though that was my own stupidity more than anything else. I've had these now for over a year now which perviously I had gone through two creative earphones and three £2 no brands in same time period.

 

[Vuliev]

It's really a hard problem to solve without hampering usability. The thing is that all you have to do is bend a wire somewhat badly so it starts to fray. It's really easy to bend them or crease them because the wires are so thin so the wire, or at least the casing needs to be a lot thicker which isn't fun to lug around.

I've found that cloth-wrapped cables are actually very resistant to this, except right at where they meet the manufacturer's plug. I had a pair of Philips headphones that lasted me two years (before one of the speakers inexplicably gave out), and the only thing I had to do was cut the original (and badly designed) plug off and replace it with one of those kits you can get from RadioShack.

 

[him over there]

It's really a hard problem to solve without hampering usability. The thing is that all you have to do is bend a wire somewhat badly so it starts to fray. It's really easy to bend them or crease them because the wires are so thin so the wire, or at least the casing needs to be a lot thicker which isn't fun to lug around.

I've found that cloth-wrapped cables are actually very resistant to this, except right at where they meet the manufacturer's plug. I had a pair of Philips headphones that lasted me two years (before one of the speakers inexplicably gave out), and the only thing I had to do was cut the original (and badly designed) plug off and replace it with one of those kits you can get from RadioShack.

Sounds cool, I'll have to check that out. Thanks.

 

[Vuliev]

It's really a hard problem to solve without hampering usability. The thing is that all you have to do is bend a wire somewhat badly so it starts to fray. It's really easy to bend them or crease them because the wires are so thin so the wire, or at least the casing needs to be a lot thicker which isn't fun to lug around.

I've found that cloth-wrapped cables are actually very resistant to this, except right at where they meet the manufacturer's plug. I had a pair of Philips headphones that lasted me two years (before one of the speakers inexplicably gave out), and the only thing I had to do was cut the original (and badly designed) plug off and replace it with one of those kits you can get from RadioShack.

Sounds cool, I'll have to check that out. Thanks.

Just know that you're going to need a soldering iron to get proper joints to the plug contacts. Hopefully, you've got one or know someone's you can borrow.

If you're interested in the headphones, my old pair was a Philips SHS5200, and my current pair is an SHS390.