[growse]

Their point (I think) is that plastic is a better material choice in this context.

The original assertion that one product in better because they use "premium materials" like "metal" falls into the same trap of "Things made of metal are better than things made of plastic", which is a nonsense schtick that Apple's been selling people for years.

[armadsen]

This seems to have missed that I also talked about repairing cheap plastic Beats headphones recently. I don't really care if my headphones are made out of plastic or metal. I do care that they don't break easily. As a heuristic, for consumer products, those made out of metal are generally more durable than those made out of plastic. There are of course very strong plastics, used to make very well engineered devices, and also junk made out of metal. But as a stand in for all the details that would explain why one consumer widget is more durable than another, "it's made of metal not plastic" is pretty decent, and I'd argue well-understood by most people.

Worth noting that I'm an engineer, and have designed through to manufacturing things made out of both metal and plastic. I'm not unaware of the subtleties.

[growse]

Oh, I agree, durability and reliability are important, and it can be harder to get those right using plastics. Personally, I enjoy the fact that every single part on my Sennheiser HD25's can be replaced easily, and they're made of plastic.

I just dislike the "Oooooo metal! Must be good!" when it's a lot more complicated than that.

[jakeva]

Well regardless, the ease with which people take up arms against anyone who like something different from them is strange.

There are no objective truths about metal or plastic as a material for headphones, just what people prefer. I love the metal. But apparently, enjoying my headphones means to some that I've been brainwashed. I find the assertion ludicrous on its face.

[davidivadavid]

That's true in theory but often wrong in practice.

You could conceivably make products with such as thing as "premium plastic" (some companies/products do), but the overwhelming experience people have with plastic is that it's often cheap injection molding, breaks easily, doesn't look good, etc.

You could also build crap with metal, so of course there's nothing inherent to those materials.

But the perception isn't entirely wrong.

[dbbk]

I'm not really sure what the point you're trying to make is considering that Apple already sells premium plastic products... the AirPods.

[dustinmoris]

To be fair from an environmental point of view alone the non plastic version is superior let alone for other reasons.