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:

1. consumers buy cheaper headphones and forget about the sound;
2. manufacturers make unbreakable wires or go wireless;
3. 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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The opinions expressed within this blog are those of the authors alone. ©2011 Tech IT Easy. All Rights Reserved.

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