Friday 5 June 2009

Stereo-typically poor headphones?

One frustration I come upon every few months is just how rubbish headphones are – I can guarantee that within 3 months of purchase, a set is completely destroyed and must be replaced.

I’ve tried all sorts – the cheap ones, the expensive ones, branded, unbranded – all of which end up in various states of disassembly.

The previous set was a ‘Technotrend’ pair bought from Tesco’s.  Their current state is that the backs have fallen off each ‘phone’,  one side no longer works, and the other side sometimes leaves the frontage that protects the speaker in your ear.

My current set (about 6 weeks old) has a back that falls off on one side and occasionally discharges an electrical shock at random intervals into the ear.  These ones are Phillips and were twice as much as said technotrend units.

I often listen to quiet music whilst I work to filter out background office noise and distractions, and I also find it helps to stimulate the brain.  So they do get used daily, but only in an office environment.  I’ve tried tens of sets over the years, and ALL show similar problems.  The only solution I can see are ‘over the ear’ units, but I don’t think these are appropriate for an office environment, as they’re hardly discreet, and are more difficult to use with a single ear (I like to keep one ear free to at least have some contact with the outside world).

A short discussion in the office seems to confirm that I’m not the only one that experiences these issues, and quite frankly its abysmal that no-one seems to build headphones which are resistant to their environment.  Unless you can suggest otherwise.  I do wonder on this World Environment Day (WED) how many millions – perhaps billions of these go into landfill every year? Such a waste.

No comments: