Alright, since Christmas of last year I have bought 3 different pairs of headphones for my iPhone (because they are ridiculously breakable and the plastic on the side comes off, but that’s not what I’m asking about). What I’m asking about is their tendency to get very noticeably quieter after just a few months of use. I’m assuming that this is what is happening because when I first bought them, I never turned the volume up past the halfway mark because it was *way *to loud past that. Later on, though, I noticed that I was turning it up to at least halfway under regular conditions, but I thought it was just that I had gotten used to a louder sound.
Then they broke, and I bought a new pair. This pair was very loud again, and I again never turned it up past halfway. Eventually, though, this pair too got softer (without my noticing), until the front fell off the right earbud and I had to buy a third pair. The new pair is also very loud compared to the ones I was using before and so I made the connection that these headphones are louder when I buy them than they are later.
If I were going deaf, new pairs wouldn’t be louder than used pairs. The new pairs would be the same volume to me as the old ones before they broke, which they are not.
The apple headphones are cheap junk. Everyone I’ve ever had out of the box has failed. I just stopped expecting them to work worth a damn and started buying other sets.
No argument here (except I love that combination microphone/pause-skip button), but do any of our science Dopers know about the mechanics of speaker wear? (If they do, in fact, degrade over time.)
The speakers shouldn’t degrade. The likeliest scenario is that the wire is getting bent and worn out and that this impacting the signal reaching the earbuds. My IPod earbuds went bad after a couple of months - it was actually just the right earbud, and I’m assuming the wire got bent too severely. The headphone wires get a lot of abuse. My current set is still doing pretty well (non-Apple earbuds).
Do you notice any difference in volume from one ear to the other?
Seriously. I have a pair of these Sony earbuds and I very nearly threw them out when one side stopped working. Turns out that all the sound comes through a tiny pinhole-sized hole in the earpiece (easier to see when you take off the rubber earplug part), and that had got clogged with earwax. I cleaned it out and it was good as new.
I only found this out from reading reviews on Amazon. If your earphones are a similar design, try it. You might be amazed!
Edit to add: You can see the tiny hole in the second photo down on that site. I cleaned it out with the end of a paperclip. BTW, I have sung the praises of these earphones before - they are the best I have ever used.
iPod earphones (of all types) have taught me that I have a seemingly limitless amount of earwax in my ears. Especially my right ear. I think that ear is more wax than ear.
From my experience, this is the most likely. I think with all the connections - to the mic, then back to the wire, etc, there are just more places to wear out. Since I use my iPhone in the gym as an iPod a lot, I deal with sweat, and moving them around a lot, and basically just putting lots of wear and stress on mine. I just recently finally found a pair of stereo bluetooth ones I like, to get rid of the wires altogether. Hopefully this is the last set of iPhone headphones I have to buy for a while…
I used to think it was the wires getting damaged, but now I’m pretty sure I’ve chucked out several pairs of earbuds that were just gummed up with wax. Unless you actually hear a crackling noise when you waggle the wire (which probably does indicate a dodgy connection), just try giving them a good clean before you toss them.
Yes this is the reason. Look at them closely the holes get clogged up. They should put some kind of felt or cloth over it. Like the kind of headphones that don’t go IN your ear but cover them. They have the cloth.