EDIT: Here's the fake review analysis for the headphones: https://www.fakespot.com/product/bluedio-f2-faith-active-noi...
Sorry to be a bit of an asshole.
Do not buy Chinese crap. It's a lottery.
My Sennheisers (made of plastic BTW) have been in use since 2014. My previous Sennheisers broke (just the headband) after a couple of years.
Bought $30 Taiwanese headphones, good Amazon reviews, but the headband is too small. And the microphonics is terrible. Sigh.
Recently bought boots, Made in China. Size is about 1.5 units off.
For a certain class of goods and for reasonable price points, you do get what you pay for.
BTW I actually ended up buying Sennheiser headphones after I returned the crappy ones.
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Also related:
The Sennheisers branded ear pads or Brainwavz (IIRC) ear pads are a bit expensive ($20+).
You can get generic "memory" foam ones on AliExpress for $4.
It's not actually memory foam and they might send you the wrong type, and it's a tight fit (just remember to breathe !?) but they work.
Most of the problematic products as they relate to reviews on Amazon are Chinese products. When I used to do incentivized reviews, all but one single company who approached me for a product review (this does not include eBook authors) was not Chinese.
>> For a certain class of goods and for reasonable price points, you do get what you pay for.
This is 100% true, but I find a lot of Chinese products punched above their weight. During my time reviewing, I turned down the cheap sketchy products and focused mainly on stuff that I wanted that looked like they were well made. And you know what, a lot of the products I got were actually fantastic relative to their selling price.
Say you want bookshelf speakers. Going with the budget pick I might get Pioneer SP-BS22-LRs, but they're around 4500RMB here in China. Other reputable brands come in around 10000RMB, which is so far outside my budget its not even funny. But most of these speakers are made in China anyways, so you start sleuthing. K, i find a post on an Audiophile forum that tells me that HiVi(/Swan) makes the drivers for most upscale Audio equipment. Let's check what HiVi has. Ahh, they've got a bloody gorgeous pair of speakers for 1699RMB[0], and a passable one for 699RMB, and an official Taobao store. And they'll do.
Boots I would not buy from China, in China, you can return them and test.
For budget headphones, Senneheiser is what I get in Germany, Tascam if you're in the US, JVC for Asia. Don't know any Chinese brands of note there.
For smartphones Xiaomi is blowing it out of the water right now. Their Redmi（红米） line is incredible value. Then there's Huawei, Meizu, OPPO, Honor, and whatever Hammer(Chuizi) is.
[0]https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=542718449070&ns=1&abbuc...
Let me guess, HD280 Pro? It seems they've fixed that for HD380s.
I got angry, took my drill, a piece of metal, couple of screws and connected the whole thing Mad Max style. Yes, they were quite uncomfortable.
And you couldn't really wear them in public too.
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And yes hd380s seem to have longer lasting headband than the hd280s.
They haven't all been the best sounding, or even the best value, but they've all had decent sound quality. Some of them have had exceptional sound quality.
(Darn, had to create an account to post this comment)