HP in audio partnership with Bang & Olufsen

[MrRockliffe]

Not in terms of cosmetic damage, but all had a blown driver which I can only assume is as a result of poor quality control.

[tribaljet]

Agree mostly, that's why I typed "(neutral)" maybe I should have said "(neutral?)". Where I disagree is that Beats colouration means that while they're probably quite good for their target music, you probably would want something else if you've got a more varied musical taste (and I have)

Three broken Beyer's - you got a particularly clumsy postman? I know that they're not exactly "audiophile" but my DT660's seem pretty resilient. Sony 'phones I've got liking for - and What HiFi seems to rate the in-ear ones - but as you say the support isn't there, (especially as a lot of the Sony Centres seem to have closed).

Wouldn't mind splashing out for my birthday on something a bit better than the DT660's though - at times they seem a little too eager to put the high end "in your face".

Well, reason I said so was due to having far too many arguments with the pretentious variety of audiophiles that consider neutral/analytical/cold signatures to be the be all end all of sound, whereas sound is one of the highest subjective areas of the market, aside the factual technical differences, of course.

Regarding Beats, the thing is that they're not even (close to being) the best for their target genres or usages, given that cheaper alternatives like Ultrasone HFI-580 (or the more balanced HFI-780) and Audiotechnica ATH-M50s perform better, with higher accuracy and clarity at a quite lower price point.

On the Beyerdynamic note, I would have to say they can comfortably be considered "audiophile" headphones (particularly from DT770 and up), and having that many broken headphones leads me to wonder, just like yourself, whether there have been poor handling of the packages, as that's by far an unusual situation particularly due to Beyerdynamic headphones being known to be robust enough as to avoid any sort of frequent damage on their products under normal usage.

EDIT: Just saw MrRockliffe's post after I sent mine, and I should also note that sometimes people can just be that unlucky For instance, currently sending my Corsair AX1200i to RMA due to its amperage read sensors being messed up and shutting down my whole system through it's overcurrent protection system, something that this specific product is supposed to have and working properly. Oh well, electronics nowadays can unfortunately be very much dependent on luck of the draw.