A choose not to because the lifetime of expensive "high quality" earbuds is about the same as a $2 pair from the supermarket, if I'm going to pay for high end ones I want something that will last more than a few months and I've been burned a couple of times. The midrange ($30-$40) sony ones are the only brand I've had that can last a year.
hm, most "high quality" earbuds nowadays come with detachable cables and i have 3 200$+ earbuds with mmcx. 2 chi-fi and 1 sony, all of them work for 3-5 years of active use. Yes mmcx chords could break from time to time, but top notch chords cost like 5-10$ on aliexpress nowadays. anyway i'm probably a little bit biased here, because after you get several dissent pairs you start to think what kind of music you what to play today and what kind of headphones signature you should use for this music, because to be honest there is a huge difference. And yeah i was exactly like you, buying the cheapest possible earbuds 5 years ago and i had like 10+ of thous cheap sony/philips/sennheisers. They all break in a couple of mounts-year. Usually it is a chord or just some driver problems.
I'm a KZ fan. Most models have detachable cables with several replacement options, including Bluetooth. My current main is ZS6, very neutral, but the angular metal body can be quite uncomfortable. Before that I had ZST which was way more comfortable and had more bass, although the instrument separation wasn't as good. Still the best $20 I've ever spent on music.
heh, i'm not really a headphone guru o something, just listened 8-10 decent iem in my life and nothing from 1k+ price range) All i know is that if you never had something more expensive then 10$ then pretty much any chi fi of 50-100$ will sound good. I have LZ-a4, BGVP - DM6 and pinnacle p1 (not mine, but can use them). All of them have their good and bad sides and it really depends on the dac you are going to use. Because LZ-a4 sound terrific on fiio q1mk2(the cheapest dac i have) with some electronic music. BGVP - DM6 are the best on LG-v30 and have the best clarity overall (The Weeknd songs sound with much greater complexity and sometimes i can feel that there is a way to even separate the Daft Punk part out of Starboy. Don't know if i like it, but it is definitely a completely new experience). And Pinnacle sound noticeably better on any old rock (Fleetwood mac) or something like Norah Jones, Ellioth Smith when you don't want clarity because the record is imperfect and you actually want to here the "velvet" sound.
I had couple KZ back in 2016-17 and they were pretty much the same as 15-30$ sennheisers, wasn't impressed, but the headphones industry is changing way too fast, so even today i would have to make a market research myself for a new pair if i wanted another sound signature.
Btw my first kinda decent pair was Sony Xba-C10 (got them for 25$ on sale) and it was my 1-st single armature driver iem and i still think that they can play classical solo piano music (like Chopin or Debussy) equally well as any of my 100-200$ headphones (even better then Pinnacle). Yes they have 0 bass and you can't play any modern music on them.
> The midrange ($30-$40) sony ones are the only brand I've had that can last a year.
I've had a couple pairs of midrange Sony earbuds (MDR-E821V) that I've used for the last 10+ years. I've replaced the padding with some silicone ones, but other than that, they work great for me.
I've recently bought these after having an earlier model for a year and a half (which I lost, they were still working fine). They've got a replaceable cable which solves the main issue I had with earlier earphones.
I have had my Audio Technica ATH500s for 10 years now. I paid $150AUD for them and of course I feel that was worth every dollar. One of the only pieces of technology I own that has lasted so long.
you are touching on a pet peeve of mine. i buy new earbuds every few months. i spend $5 to $10 on average. and i hesitate to buy more expensive ones because i can't tell if they will last any longer. your experience proves me right. i'll be looking for sony now though...
