[sinphase]

just some questions about the life span of your headphones. 
 
1. what headphones do you have?
2. how long have you had them?
3. what do you use them for? (ie. just at home, travel etc) 

 

[BotByte]

SR80i: 6 months, I see a lifetime as long as I take care of the cable. Just put on custom pads and have two pairs left
 
MDR-V'6: 3 weeks, I see about 3 years before any fixes. Maybe new pads in a year. The pads are soft
 
T50RP: 3 days, 10 years if treated well, 3 years for pads. 2 years for inner mod replacements
 
PortaPros: 6 months, 5 years before anything breaks, $5 to Koss and I get new ones. 5 years for pads if they last that long
 
That's just talking full sized
 
I've had a cheapy pair of Sony Earbuds for well over 7 years now and they still are like brand new. It's the cable, Sony makes some nice cables.
 
Then Sony sport earbuds for 6 years, I had to take apart the plug and put a new one on because of cheap solder

 

[DemonicLemming]

HFI-780: 4 years, used primarily at work and while traveling on planes.  Never had any issues at all with them; they're in semi-retirement now as.
LCD2: about two months, only use them at my desk at home.  No problems with them so far.
SRH-840: a week, primarily work phones, to use both at my desk and in the lab.  No issues so far.

 

[BotByte]

Quote:

 they're in semi-retirement now as.

Aren't every headphone not in use always in semi-retirement?

 

[kingtz]

SR60: 5 years; home
HD280: 5 years; home, work
SRH840: 1 year; home, work
HD650: 1 year; home
M50: 6 months; home, work
TF10: 3-4 months; work

 

[holden4th]

I've got the following
 
Shure SRH840s - 6 months
Sennheiser HD580s - bought used, have to be at least 10 years old
Sony MDR-D66SL 16 years
Sennheiser HD540 Reference Gold MkII - 23 years
 
All work perfectly!

 

[Uncle Erik]

I won't go through the collection, but the pair I've owned the longest are a pair of AKG K-1000s. They're babied and sleep in the box. Zero problems.

You'll find driver failures to be extremely uncommon. Most of the problems are with cables. Cables can be replaced on anything.

 

[RudeWolf]

Though not exactly audiophile, I've had many headphones. As with most things the points that fail are the ones that move. Most of the time the cables are the first to break, especially on portable setups. It's always wise to minimise any bending on the cable and think ahead to get the straight or the L jack. Tight pockets are the worst on connects. I've had some longer jacks mangling up the solder spots where the port connects to the PCB. Driver failures are not that common, I think. Unless it's a manufacturing defect. I've heard of diafragms getting stretched out in time but it takes decades for that to happen.