Entries RSS · Were my Sennheiser headphones "made to break?"
I wanted to write a brief follow-up to my Eulogy from a few weeks ago. To recap: my Sennheiser PX 200 headphones died for a second time, not because anything was wrong with their original purpose—to produce great sound—but because a more marginal feature failed: the wires, that connect my mp3-player to the speakers.
I have decided that headphones, especially the more expensive kind, are a big rip-off, because, while the sound may be better per euro/dollar spent, the wires are pretty much identical with whatever model you buy. And it’s the wires that fail 95% of the time, not the USP with which headphones are usually advertised: better sound.
In my opinion, there are three solutions for this problem:
- consumers buy cheaper headphones and forget about the sound;
- manufacturers make unbreakable wires or go wireless;
- manufactures make wires modular.
I thought of the latter, remembering an interview, I heard years ago, with Giles Slade, author of the book “Made to break,” and believer in a great conspiracy: that, ever since the industrial economy took off, manufacturers have create products that were designed to break, because the alternative—a perfectly replaceable modular system—would diminish their profit-potential. The consequence of this philosophy is that, instead of throwing away failing components, we are forced to throw away the whole thing—whatever it is—resulting in great, big thrash-heaps all over the world. The consequence is a higher cost for the environment and for consumers.
The manufacturers’ perspective kind of makes sense. If you look at two computer-companies, IBM and Apple, the one that opened up its technology to be replaceable, was the one who is no longer a computer-company today: IBM. And those technologies that have decided to go modular—razor-blades, printer-cartridges, the iPod-ecosystem—have done so in a way that it is become monetarily painful to replace any part of that technological system. On the other hand, smart companies like Dell have proven that modularity can also create opportunities, but for assemblers more than manufacturers.
Taking it back to headphones, I (egotistically) maintain that a non-modular stance does not apply for the case of wires—though there may be arguments regarding portability. Rather, wires have long been modular for pretty much any application, ranging from mere electrical plugs to the wires that you hook up to your stereo-system. While the quality of wiring plays a real role in the quality of sound, the ultimate value that is attributed to a speaker-brand, is in the quality of the speakers themselves. Sennheiser would lose little by making wires replaceable; rather it would avoid potential PR-scandals and expensive warranty-problems.
This is of course assuming that Sennheiser isn’t one of those companies, whose products are “made to break.”
Vincent
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Tags: Giles Slade, ink cartridges, made to break, PX 200, razor blades, sennheiser
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Is it only Sennheiser? All other maufacturers should follow and agree on standards. That would be a help for customers.
By the way: I remember years ago I had to replace the wires to my sennheiser earphones (I had used then). It was possible, only the wires were difficult to get.
Good thing you followed-up on this, because I found myself thinking along a bit different path yesterday. I remembered a recent episode of the Colbert Report with an interview of the author of OBD: Obsessive Branding Disorder, Lucas Conley, who argues that brand-centric product development leaves quality aside. I agree with him that brands are supposed to portray originality and quality and commitment to them. He had some really good examples of brand-extension gone horribly wrong like Kool-aid sneakers and Cheetos lip balm.
What I see as one cause of your Sennheiser’s getting broken so quickly is that in today’s commoditized world there’s very little that made your headphones “Sennheiser” except for design and the brand. As you said, the wires are pretty much identical whatever model you get. I guess that the only thing Philips or Sony in the cheapest earbuds you can get is just the packaging. Sure, they are low-profit product, but why then even bother? Where in Sony’s mission statement it says that “we thrive to make crappy earbuds”?
I’m not so sure about modularization, then companies would have an incentive to make crappy wires and they would still be priced almost the same with earphones anyway. Just like razors and razor-blades. The latest innovation (in ripping-off consumers) from Gillette was to add another consumable to their razors, their Duracell batteries.
Not only the brand but the product behind it should not be easily copied. Sadly, it looks like that today most of the R&D seems to be made in the marketing department.
PS. There’s a certain irony that Conley’s book has Search Inside!(tm) available in Amazon…
Let me correct you about a few things, Kari. First of all, the quality of Sennheiser is not just the packaging & brand; they do in fact make some great sounding headphones, the best I’ve ever used, btw. Additionally, my particular pair had the advantage that they insulate sound very well—useful in public transport, dangerous when biking/walking on a well-trafficked road— as well as folding to become extremely compact, rare for this type of headphones.
Regarding modularity, the high price-tag of matching wires is nearly to be expected, but it could still be much less than replacing the whole thing. These are consumer-savings, and ignore the ecological savings that also take place.
Gillette is a very interesting company, and perhaps ink-cartridges too, because there’s very little innovation to be made over the traditional one-blade razor. They pretty much nailed it with the Mach 3, I thought, though I would’ve also sworn by the 2-blade variant before the 3rd one came out. What’s also interesting about Gillette is that the IP is in the blade, not the carrier of the blade, while for Sennheiser the IP is in the headset, not in the wires connecting to the headset. So, in my opinion, a somewhat different situation.
Possibly, Gillette’s battery-powered handle could be a way to make the handle less commoditised, I don’t know.
I bought a pair of Audio Technica noise canceling headphones last year. The sound is incredible as is the noise canceling properties. but, my favorite part is that the wires are modular. There are two benefits to that. First, as you mentioned, if they break, it’s much cheaper to replace those (and they are industry standard anyway). and 2, most of the reasons wires break is because they get munched when not being used. So because these are modular, I take the wires out every time I stop using them. So the wirse don’t get damaged.
That’s really cool, Adam! Thanks for letting us know!
Dear Vincent,
Thanks for remembering me and my book. I love the example that you use because headphones are one of the original consumer electronic products from the 19th century invented slightly after telephones because of the noise and confusion in telephone operation rooms. (I have some early photographs including the patent drawing from 1881 that I’d be happy to send you if you’d like to post them on your sight). These invisible devices have been with us virtually unchanged for over a century. Cleverly after the development of disposable transistor radios in the late 50s and early 60s they (headphones, earphones, ear plugs) became disposable too. And there’s still a massive worldwide market in throwaway phones. Recently however electronics manufacturers have done what the iPod did for MP3 players and raised these disposable items to luxury item status by designing them to produce much better sound. BUT they are still highly breakable and therefore still throwaway items as you point out. So really there is a double whammy here: the consumer is paying more for a disposable product. There was a device in the 70s called the ‘bone phone’ that transmitted musical sound to bones of the ear by vibration. It didn’t isolate the consumer inside a potentially lethal cone of silence and was a fairly cheap and durable device, but it never caught on. For now, we seem to be stuck with either circum -aural, super-aural or inter-aural headphones, all of which have the same basic internal structure and yes, the same, really cheap wires that wear down after a few weeks of use connecting and disconnecting the jack.
Well, nice to know someone remembers the book. It took me 4 years to write and it is not a conspiracy theory as much as a description of what compromises manufacturers routinely make in advanced capitalism. –Thanks again, Vincent!
(ps I’m working on a new book about the coming age of environmental refugees under global warming).
Sorry Vince, I was trying to generalize the issue too much. True, Sennheiser is one of the brands I too trust to give me good sound, because they’re focused on earphones and microphones.
Maybe I’m mixing things with brand-overextension/brand dilution and desiging for breaking, but they both lead to brand oversell and quality undersell for customers.
I guess the problem lies somewhere in your option number 1), but also on manufacturer side because they too want to cut costs and hope customers don’t care that much for sound.
Isn’t the classical example of making to break women’s stockings? I can’t remember it all, but didin’t manufacturers in advent of nylon first make them to last and only later noticed the effect of making that mistake in their bottom line?
I seriously suspect a conspiracy in SonyEricsson phones that they make the battery covers become loose and easy to come off in about 1,5 years of normal use. And that my phones cover’s paint is peeling off, but that’s a new one.
I guess we’ll have to read Giles’ book to see how wide-ranging this problem really is, but it wouldn’t surprise me that both stockings and mobile phones are “in on it.” After-all, how hard is it to make an everlasting product?
Thinking of it modularly would be a solution, at the same time, how well could Microsoft sell the 360 if you could just upgrade the graphics-card in the original Xbox, and the same for version 2+ of any gadget today? It would drastically undermine capitalist principles, which are clearly bad for the environment and consumers, but which also affect R&D budgets and such.
It’s a complex problem to solve, for sure, and there would need to be a compromise between both systems. I imagine it lies between charging lots for proprietary modules, making it more attractive to just upgrade the whole product.
As for my Sennheiser’s, I think I’ll just walk down to the next electronic-parts store and ask them if they can replace the wires. When all else fails, some power to the people still remains.
actually, the wires seldom are not replaceable in such a device. proffesional models usually have micro-jack attached wires, or hidden-fixed-with-screw attached wires.
if its models restrained by price or size or consumerism, theres no jacks, but its often possible to do-it-yourself no problem.
the question usually is – are you too busy to (learn to) do it yourself and have to
a)pay someone else
b)buy new ones
otherwise you just do it.
anyway, the broken thing is a WIRE. you could not get simpler than that.
[...] “Were my Sennheiser headphones “made to break?”” got some interest comments on it, way more than I expected, to be honest. For one, Giles Slade, author of “Made to Break” had a few words to say (added some paragraphs for easier reading): Dear Vincent, [...]