| Cheaply made products that break easily are always a problem; there are certainly a lot of terrible headphones on the market, with or without wires. However, the problem you are describing: > One side of the headphones stops playing sounds; you can sometimes spin the connector and get the sound back, [...] and it stops working eventually. I suspect that might be terrible quality wires, not necessarily the headphones. The quality of patch cable at the usual big-box consumer stores has fallen dramatically over the last ~5-10 years. It can be really difficult to find a cable hasn't changed the outer protective wrapping from traditional softer rubber(?) to some sort of cheap plastic. The wrapping on the new cables can harden badly over as little as 2-3 months, leading to sharp kinks/bends forming over time that break the delicate wires inside. The newer cables also tend to lack protective stiffeners at the ends for protection against damaging the wires if the cables is pulled at a right angle to the connector. Once the wire has started to break, you might be able to get it working again for a while by turning the connector (if the break is at or near the connector) or otherwise moving the cable until the broken ends of the conductor touch. On the other hand, most of the cables that I bought in the late-80s/early-90s still work fine. (they never formed permanent kinds) The problem is race-to-the-bottom we're seeing everywhere as businesses try to squeeze every last cent out their products. This will happen to wireless headphones eventually, but for now they are in a honeymoon period where they are still a "new(-ish) tech" that is experimenting with new designs. Eventually the value engineers and must-meet-growth-targets management will get around to "optimizing" their quality and longevity too. |
FWIW audio cables in consumer stores were pretty much always PVC, though, as you like many other people discovered, there are quality plastics and cheap plastics. The former will last quite a number of years before turning hard and brittle, the latter won't, smells badly and probably gives you cancer for free, too.
Speaker, microphone and guitar cables for studio / stage use often have rubber sheathing (~neoprene), though many are just higher quality PVC.
> The newer cables also tend to lack protective stiffeners at the ends for protection against damaging the wires if the cables is pulled at a right angle to the connector.
Using the tiniest of ferrules seems to be a conscious design choice, though incorrect material and manufacture are commonly seen as well. In any case, a bad design that's poorly manufactured is not going to work.
As usual, non-consumer products don't have the problem, at all.
> The problem is race-to-the-bottom we're seeing everywhere as businesses try to squeeze every last cent out their products.
While that's certainly true, the ali/bangood-mentality also has to do with it. "Oh look, I can get $thisThing for 2.5 $ delivered from China, which normally costs 10 $". A compounding problem is of course, that the 10 $ store item is the same as the 2.5 $ Ali item, so you actually need to turn to the proper online store to get the quality matching price point.