Earphones keep breaking

Question

Level 1

118 points

Earphones keep breaking

I keep on breaking my earphones. First, I had to return my iPod Shuffle earphones. Now, my iPhone earphones are in repear (already for three weeks!!) and now my Shuffle earphones are broken again. What am I doing wrong????

After a while (a couple of weeks) the sound gets slightly distorted in one (or both) speakers. Especially low tones distort quite a lot.

Do I have to do something special with them? I just put them in my pocket when not using them, but apparently they are too fragile for that? Do others have the some problems? I know their sound quality is very poor overall, but after a few weeks of usage they completely fail and that's a whole other issue I guess.

iMac 24 inch aluminum, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Feb 16, 2009 8:21 AM

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Answer 1

JoeZinVA

Level 2

431 points

Feb 16, 2009 8:25 AM in response to Tomeranaray

Could try getting a case for the earphones.
Glasses case, change purse, etc.
PS: Don't run them in the washer machine by accident. They'll ruin them.

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Answer 2

gilesjuk

Level 2

195 points

Feb 16, 2009 8:27 AM in response to Tomeranaray

Do you wrap them up tightly? this tends to strain the cable and breaks them.

Are you playing your music very loud with high bass? you might be damaging the headphones and your hearing.

Personally I prefer non-Apple headphones (Apple does the phone no justice shipping the iPhone with low quality headphones). The JVC HA-FX34-B phones I use are much nicer sounding, plus they isolate background noise and so you can reduce the volume required.

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Answer 3

Tomeranaray Author

Level 1

118 points

Feb 16, 2009 8:35 AM in response to gilesjuk

When you say straining the cable, do you mean the cable itself could get damaged? Or do you mean like pulling them so the contact between the cord and the speaker gets broken?

Well, no I don't 🙂 I really have the feeling the problem is in the speaker itself. When I blow in them the problem sometimes goes away for a short while.

And I never play them loudly, the default quality of the speakers is far too bad to play them at high volume.

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Answer 4

Feb 16, 2009 7:26 PM in response to Tomeranaray

If you want an inexpensive but amazing, clear sound for less than $50, get the ones below in the link. I bought these 8 months ago for my Nano. I was recently on vacation with a friend who has the latest iPod with the stock Apple ear buds. I could not get past 1 song that is how dreadful those ear buds are after using the Sony ones below. I bought my iPhone 3 weeks ago and the ear buds that came with such are still in the package. Apple also sells these below but at full price.

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Mdr-Ex75-Earbuds-Headphones-Hi-Sensitivity/dp/B0015AB 6DO/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234840573&sr=1-1

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Answer 5

Feb 16, 2009 7:30 PM in response to rednano74

thats great for listening but there is no mic. It's a pain having to pull out the headphones all the time just to answer a call.

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