Sennheiser HD-25

I got these for casual listening and what drew me to them was that I could buy every single part for them separately - all retail. I also have ATH-M50 and the pleather on those fell apart in a few years. I spent close to the price of a new pair on a headband, ear pads and for a person to resolder them. Then the pleather fell apart again just with them sitting in a drawer, hardly being used and away from sunlight. I said "never again". I said "repairability over everything else". This is what these headphones are. I don't care if the cable will break. I don't care if the pads will wear out. I can replace everything myself. That's worth every cent. Now, they don't sound like audiophile headphones. They're kinda dark and have overemphasized bass. But the thing is, brain adapts to different sound signatures and then nothing is missing with these. And, listen, a lot of DJs are using these for good reasons. I see them all the time. I got confused for a DJ once by face control at a club.

So you can replace every part. I've owned these for seven years now and I still haven't felt a real need to replace anything. Perhaps the time is coming for new headband pads. Speaking of the headband, it was not easy to find the right position for it for my head, but once I figured out what works, it just works.

The one thing that truly frustrates me about my unit is that the connectors going into the cups never really connected without issues. Every time I put them on, I need to wiggle the cables or pull them out and push them back in. That is annoying. I don't know, maybe it's just mine that do that. But the thing is, I will happily deal with this issue if it means I don't need to sweat about breaking a soldered-in cable or wearing out a non-replaceable headband. These will be my ship of Theseus.