Mildly Infuriating

Built to Fail: The story of 21st century consumer technology.

I'm a little biased as I work for Bose but we still use a metal yoke and hinge.

I don't know if heads have gotten bigger over the years, I have a mutant oversized melon for a head, maybe they just design the phones for small heads?

So frustrating when an otherwise good product has an Achilles' heel. Is this bad design an oversight to save cost or intentional to limit its service life?

/don't know if this particular product is "otherwise good", speaking more generally

This is the second time these broke on my WH1000-XM5's. At least they're easily replacable by just removing a few screws and dropping in a new one.

Compared to that, this bad boy is over 30 years old and never broke once - thanks to a headband which is made out of metal. Despite that, it's even more comfortable than Sony's modern one:

My brother got me an audio technica ATH-M30 in 2011. This before they even had the 30x. I've easily put 12k hours in em, just needed to change the ear cups. I drop them all them time from desk height too.

Every few years I've thought about upgrading for better quality but they get the job done well enough that I never pull the trigger. It's a consumers dream

But if they sold you a pair that lasted for decades, you wouldn't need to buy any more.

I've moved onto earbuds. Earfun Air for a staggering £22. The sound genuinely isn't bad either, I've no idea how you can even make them for that. Slavery, probably. Still, £22 is £22.

If this comment saves only one person from wasting their money, it is worth it:

Do not buy Focal Bathys.

The build quality is super cheap, mine broke not even two years after purchase. The plastic surrounding the metal bits that connect the central part to the ear pads will break sooner or later.

At least they were probably expensive.

I brought these on sale recently. Learned about the shitty hinge quality afterwords.. For what its worth, I found this repair kit from centralsound.co, and its a solid reinforcement option. It works even on a fully broken hinge like yours. Sucks to pay an additional $40 for "premium" headphones to ensure they last beyond the warranty, but here we are..

Similar vibe… whatever that shitty material that they put on the top padded band and foam ear coverings that starts to crack and flake off on my bald head making me look like I have a skin disorder. I’ve had headphones ranging in price from $30 to $300 and they all do it.

I have templates for metal parts you can cut and bend with hand tools and a cheap dremel. I can send it to you if you want.

Planned obsolescence

Sony parts prices are insane. The urethane pleather on my headband started cracking on my xm4's. A replacement headband was half the price of a new unit. So I ended up getting a silicone cover that will hopefully keep the pieces from flaking off into my hair. I also needed new earpads. Oem pads were around $40 for EACH side. The pleather just has a certain degradation time and once it hits, it all falls apart at the same time. Replacing all the pleather parts on my unit would have cost just as much as a new headset.

I hate having something designed to be somewhat repairable but practically speaking it isn't due to pricing.

Took me a long time to find decent headphones that last long.

I've tried several times with beyerdynamic, my DT 880 lasted for quite a while, but then got issues. I sent the DT 990 and the DT 1990 PRO back, they both lost audio on one side after a few weeks. I totally gave up on headsets (with a microphone), they are always shoddy quality wise and either the mute button breaks or one side gives out.. or the headband snaps.

I've had the Sennheiser HD 660 S for 5 years now and the best thing about it: The cable goes to both sides. So when the cable finally broke on one side I could simply replace it for 15€. It's also much easier to switch out the earpads, they just click in. Compared to the DT 880 where it feels like you're going to tear something and you have to stretch the thing onto the plastic.

Yeah, this is a huge problem. I found the best solution is to buy a 3.5mm audio cable with a microphone (these can be had for 10-20$) and attach them to a nice set of metal band headphones (closed or open depending on if you want sound isolation). I gave up on gaming, Sony headphones and the like a long time ago they are all trash no matter how much you pay for them, they break and become e-waste in the first year.

My XM4s are still holding up after 3 years and are definitely beefier than this.

I gave my old WH1000XM2's away to family because it was sitting in a drawer after I bought the xm4, both still work like a charm and the xm2 only has a slightly reduced battery even after being used for 6+ hours daily for years. I don't know what the quality of the newer ones are, but the older ones are build to keep working. The noise-cancelling is the best one on the market for over ear headphones, the Bose ones put pressure on your ears which is really uncomfortable even after a few minutes (at least for me).