That would have been about six years of continuous service this summer, but the right earphone suddenly ceased to function earlier this week and I was suddenly, shockingly, without their rich, professional sound quality for the first time. I put in a call to Dale Audio, which is just a few blocks away from the office, but a new driver for the headphone would cost a little more than half the full price of a brand new pair, plus the hassle of a manual soldering job to install it. As a compromise, I can buy a pair of slightly cheaper Sony MDR-V6 headphones, which are built nearly identically but lack the gold-tipped plug of the MDR-7506; I’m not enough of an audiophile to be able to tell the difference, especially when I spend most of my time listening to poorly compressed MP3s. Still, I can’t bear the sound of most consumer level headphones, so ultimately I will, somewhat reluctantly, shell out US$75 or more to fix this gaping, inconsequential hole in my consumer life. Don’t underestimate the attachment that one can form to a good pair of headphones.
+