I would suggest not buying headphones which, apparently, cost $175 a pair. I use a pair of very high-quality $99 bose in-ear buds; the point where the wire meets the phone in my pocket is a frequent point of failure, so I use a $14 headphone extension cable, which I replace every 4 months or so. I guess this is still pretty expensive but seems to be less than half the cost of what you're doing right now.

Oh, you mean that shocking-thing going on in my ears isn't supposed to be happening?

Not wanting to place product, but Grado make excellent headphones. iGrado are okay and reliably built, but the SR60's are the best. My ears have not suffered in over 9 years use. The only problem is the SR60's should go through an extension cable, and I even have to re-solder the headphone cable to the cans (the headphone speakers) cable every few months as the connection gets loose with friction.

[Note: These are not in-ear headphones]

4 pairs in 2 years? Are you chewing on the wires? Do you let your pets use them as toys? Do you regularly drench them in liquids (battery acid, maybe) ?

I can only conclude that you must work in the most hazardous of environments.

I've had pairs of Apple, Sennheiser, Shure, and Sony headphones over the last 10 years (ranging from $10 - $200 in price), and I can only think of maybe one pair that has died (an old pair of iPhone in-ears succumbed to sweat during long-distance running), and they've all seen well over 2 years of use each.