Have you ever broken a pair of headphones and/or earbuds?

General Headphone Discussion
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Ok, I have a simple question for y’all! Have you ever broken a pair of headphones and/or earbuds?

For me, I’ve broken 3 pairs of headphones and 1 pair of earbuds!

The first headset I broke was a Razer Krazen! (I got mad at someone and… you can probably guess what I did)

The 2nd pair was another pair of headphones! I don’t know the model name (or much about them, because I really didn’t pay attention to the details for this pair) but the 2nd pair I broke was when I was running and the jack hit the edge of a metal (maybe stainless steel) cup and pulled it out of the computer (which may be one of the reasons why they were damaged)

3rd pair: More headphones! I got several-year-old sony headphones (without the muffs/for free) and were holding them around my neck when they fell off and hit a wooden floor! It knocked the left right side loose and I didn’t feel like repairing them (neither did my friend)

And finally, those earbuds! I don’t know how old they were, but I got them tangled and was trying to untangle them when I pulled the left earbud off!

So yeah, I can be kinda destructive with headphones/earbuds (though earbuds break much easier than headphones)! So, have you ever broken a pair of headphones and/or earbuds?

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I broke my first pair of Koss PortaPros. I was building an amp in the early 2000s and it was not finished but I got impatient and wanted to listen to it. I plugged in my Koss PortaPros because they were my least expensive headphones. I tuned up the volume and poof! Oscillation in one channel burned up the driver. I still own these headphones and have never sent them in to be repaired with Koss’ lifetime warrantee since I have two other spare pairs. They do serve as a reminder to be patient and complete all soldering, check and double check with a multimeter.
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I broke the headband on my first pair of OG Sennheiser HD280. My brother decided that he would stretch the headband since he read about it on the internet. This put little stress fractures in the headband which caused it to fail prematurely. I never stretch headbands and actually try to keep factory clamp on all of my headphones.
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I won’t repeat all of this third story, because members are sick and tired of hearing it. But in short, Topping burned up and destroyed one of my drivers of my Sony headphone. That is all I am going to say about that.
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Schiit Heresy burned up one of my drivers on a OneOdio headphone. Schiit took back the amp as return and offered to pay for the headphones. I have since purchased many Schiit headphone amplifiers as I have confidence in their products.

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So you blew out the speaker

Your brother caused this, eh?

I could probably search for it (or you could PM me and we talk about it there)

No comment on this one

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O.P. has about the worst luck I’ve ever heard of. I’d be afraid to go the mens’ room after a sequence of disasters like that.

I only broke one headphone, but it was epic. I’d been looking for a gently used Hifiman Edition X v2 (which had just been discontinued, so only available used). Found a seller, agreed on price, paid, and the headphones arrived.

I carefully unwrapped them, plugged the cables in to HP & amp, then proceeded to open the L/R earpads away from each other, preparing to slide the headphone over my head. Suddenly the headphone boinged away from me and to the left. I found myself holding the right earcup (only) in right hand, and the rest in left hand. Complete failure of a tiny piece of metal that took care of the pivot of yoke vs headband.

I looked at it under a good magnifier and it was obvious that metal fatigue had set in due to previous use. Emailed pictures to seller, who refunded my money promptly after I sent proof of return shipping (which we split).

It felt like a big disappointment at the time. Then 1-2 months later I bought a different used pair, and realized:

A. They were perfect/zero flaws
B. And they had a slightly different yoke/headband apparatus, a little stronger than the first pair (w/no metal fatigue, either)

I’m guessing HFM slid an undocumented upgrade into that headphone after too many cup blowouts like mine.

Either way, I had those headphones for a year or so & enjoyed them. Ended up selling them to a happy buyer.

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Yep. First I broke my neck. Then, with the halo on, I tried to put on some headphones. Epic fail. Then I tried some small on-ear Senns. That worked better, but got the wires tangled back around one of the rear halo posts, and walked or rose and they snagged where I couldn’t see and pulled the wires out and damn near an ear off. Once I ran up the stairs with earbuds in the hand where the railing was. Stray loop of cable caught on a railing support. End of earbud (it was not one with detachable cables). Other than that, I’ve still got a headphone I bought in the 1970s… I wore out cheap headphones (Veritas) that I bought in high school before I was bitten by the aww-dee-oh-file bug.

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None of them were water-damaged at all!

That’s why you don’t buy stuff used!

That sounds like a better deal than the originally used headphones you bought!

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I’d like to welcome our first reanimated post on this platform! Hope you saw the white light and had a great time on the other side…

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It was one of the halos with screws in my skull and a stabilizing vest. Probably like training wheels for the properly levitating kind.

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Fell asleep on the couch listening to my Senn 590. Sometime during my sleep induced haze I took off the headphones and set them on the floor - don’t even remember doing it. Eventually woke up and and got up off the couch and - you guessed it - CRUNCH

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That must have been painful (in at least 2 ways)

  1. The frustration of breaking your headphones like that
  2. The physical pain (of little parts going into your foot)
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