Looking for durable headphones

Smasher

I recently had yet another pair of headphones snap, which brings the total to around a half dozen which have done so over the years. The main cause is that I have a wide head, which clearly puts too much pressure on plastic headphones over an extended period of time. Thus, I'm looking for a set of headphones with the following qualities in decreasing order of importance:

- Durable as hell. I'm more or less certain this means headphones with a metal skeleton.
- Built for a wide head. This ties in with the above, but I don't want a set of headphones that's too uncomfortable to wear for extended periods of time.
- Has a built in microphone and a USB connector. I'm planning to build a new PC at some point, but for the meantime I have a mac which for technical reasons won't be able to read the sound from the microphone if it goes into the line in port.
- Circumaural in order to block out most external noise.
- Volume control on the cord (or headphone itself, if any are like that). Not essential, but very nice to have.
- Naturally, costs as little as possible without meaningfully sacrificing any of the above. I can afford $100+ if necessary, but why pay extra money if I don't need to?
- Decent cord length. I don't think this is likely to be an issue, but the sweet spot is probably 5-6 feet. I can deal with longer, but much shorter would be a pain.

Things that don't matter much:
- Super high audio quality. I'm not an audiophile, so as long as the sound quality isn't horrible it's not going to bother me.
- Appearance. As long as it's not ridiculous I don't really care.

histronic

If you are having that much trouble with headsets, why not go the earbuds route and just get a separate USB microphone?

Smasher

My main objection to earbuds is that in my (admittedly limited) experience they barely reduce external sound at all if the buds themselves aren't making any. My computer is about 15 feet from the television in the living room and it's rather distracting when anyone else is watching something. I could put music on whenever that happens, but sometimes I'm either watching a video with relatively quiet bits or just don't feel like listening to anything, and circumaural headsets are great for that.

As for the external microphone, my desk is permanently rather cluttered which would require me to move the microphone around a lot to get it out of the way of various stuff. It's not a deal breaker or anything, but if I can get the headset I'm looking for with an attached mic it's one less annoyance to deal with.

Edit: Looking further at the Wikipedia page I linked before it looks like there are in-ear headphones that would block sound much better than traditional earbuds. I could go with that and the desktop mic but would still prefer a headset if I can find one that meets my needs.

Burtletoy

You could get a refurb Sennheiser PC350 in that price range.

http://www.dakmart.com/p11300/Sennheiser-PC350-PC-350-bstock-Ultimate-Pro-Gaming-Headset/product_info.html

DAKMART is an authorized Sennheiser retailer, and the sennheiser refurbs come with a 2 year manufactures warrenty. So, yeah, their website looks pretty cheap, but it's not lying about being an authorized dealer.

Karrmer

No attached Mic and a bit pricey but Beyerdynamic makes some of the best headphones around, and they're metal. Beyerdynamic dt990 premium being probably the best. Try them once and you'll never go back

Sophie Taylor

When it comes to buying a headphone I always make sure that not only is the sound clarity a good one, also the headphone should have a decent cord length. Initially the headphones I had ordered gave me a lot of trouble as the length was inappropriate.

Hewn

USB + Mac limits your options significantly. I just picked up the Corsair 1500 USB, and they fit all your needs, except the software does not work on Mac. I think that's true for most headphones in this category, as USB options are going to provide some kind of simulated 5.1 or 7.1.

You CAN run them in bypass mode, and they work pretty well as stereo headsets. A guy on the Corsair forums said the mic worked on his Mac, so that's something. They'd be great for your PC once you upgraded to that, too. For durability's sake, they have a 2-year warranty. That helped ease my mind a little.

If you're not tied entirely to a gaming headset, and USB, the Sony MDR-V6 are the best bargain ($68 on amazon at time of posting) durable headset on the market in my opinion. I've had several friends use them and zero have had them break in years of use. My girlfriend is PARTICULARLY hard on her gear and aside from the faux leather flaking off (replacement pads are easy to find and much more durable), they are still perfect after 3 years of abuse. I've paired them with the Zalman Zm-Mic1 and it worked pretty good. I also used the Logitech USB Desktop mic, and that's okay, too. Not great, just ok.

Alternatively, I like the refurb Sennheiser PC350 that Burtletoy linked, but I think for most of those options you might need a USB adapter, so keep that in mind.

Sir Headless VII

Burtletoy wrote: »

You could get a refurb Sennheiser PC350 in that price range.

http://www.dakmart.com/p11300/Sennheiser-PC350-PC-350-bstock-Ultimate-Pro-Gaming-Headset/product_info.html

DAKMART is an authorized Sennheiser retailer, and the sennheiser refurbs come with a 2 year manufactures warrenty. So, yeah, their website looks pretty cheap, but it's not lying about being an authorized dealer.

I have a set of those headphones and they are excellent, very comfortble, and sound great but they are not usb.