> It used to be like this: You spend A LOT of money for really nice headphones and use them (potentially) your lifetime. Or hand it down to your kids as your hearing gets worse.

I have never, ever, ever known this to have happened. I’ve never once seen a 20+ year old set of headphones, let alone one that has been handed down through generations. That just silly talk.

Not to mention the fact that even if this had happened in a handful of times, the headphones would have outlived multiple cabinet sized sets of audio equipment, and several hundred pounds worth of record, 8 track, tape, and CD players - all of which wound up in a landfill somewhere. So you’ve reused the smallest component of all of that for what?