I’m a tyrant when it comes to earphones (the small ear ones and not their larger cranial death grip cousins): I buy them, abuse them, wear them out in a few months, then feed them to squirrels. Then I kill off all their relatives and seize their estates.
Admittedly, I’m not much of an audiophile; I’m not the type who can tell the difference between MP3 and CD-quality immediately and I could care less about how heavy the bass is in simulating earthquakes. I’ve bought my share of crappy cheapo headphones (which I exchanged two-month-old broken ones for new phones at Walgreens on a regular basis as a student), but I didn’t expect much from them in the first place.
I also tried the much-praised Sony in-ear headphones that always seem to be on sale at Amazon’s. They violate your ears much like your physician during your annual checkup, but like the good doctor, it’s for a good cause, as the phones do provide much clearer sound and drown out most background noise. They also tended to explode (I’m guessing it’s the driver being overloaded or shorted) while in my ear.
But yea, for some reason or another, my earphones have a tendency to die short, unmemorable deaths. I do listen to a fair amount of music – 3 to 4 hours at work, usually on the train/bus/plane when travelling, on the computer when my roommate threatens to kick my ass – so they get worn out quickly. I’ve gone through 6 or 7 earphones in the past 2 years already, so here’s hoping that these new Shure E2g‘s are as good as advertised.