The Wild Wordsmith

I hear/read complaints constantly/everywhere about how “crappy” Sony’s MDR V700 DJ headphones are. They break, apparently, quite easily. I guess I must be very lucky, or something…

Not that anyone is going to take stock in what I have to say, but I absolutely love my MDR-V700s. I’ve taken them literally everywhere with me. The protective bag that came with them died after maybe a month, but the headphones were not bothered by the months upon years (I’ve had and used the same pair often for over 4 years now) of being beaten up, banged around, and generally mistreated in my man-bag. They’ve had a laptop pressing on them, a Rubik’s Cube, grapefruit spoon, pens and pencils, forks, knives, and just about anything else I’ve ever kept in my bag rubbed against them, and they still work, and no part of them is broken. My only beef with them is the lack of an easily-replaceable cord…and I hate the curly-cord. A lot. Especially when it starts twisting the wrong way at random locations along the cord and I can’t get it to go back to the original twist direction. Nonetheless, they still work, they’re comfortable (if a little heavy), and the cord is thick enough that the couple of tiny nicks it has aren’t enough to get through all the insulation and actually expose the wire. I also really love the screw-on adapter that goes on the end. I have never lost it, thanks to the screw-on property Sony was so intelligent as to include. My headphones are just about the only Sony product I like enough to purchase. I’m glad I made the $120 investment (that’s how much they ran when I bought them 4-5 years ago.

I don’t exactly beat the crap out of my phones, but I hardly baby them, either. I’ve dropped them, sat on them, crushed them…you name it, it’s probably happened to them. They have character, and they still work as well as the first day I got them, even though my ears don’t.

So I’ve not tried any other phones, since I really don’t need to spend money to replace something that works just fine. The sound quality is good enough for me, and my only problems with them are the weight (but lighter means more fragile) and the curly cord (I want a straight cord).

Does anybody have any solutions or suggestions, by the way, to my tangled cord problem? Any opinions you’d like to express?