Excellent Product

I've had a pair of these for at least 3 years and they're still going strong.  I'm a bit of an audiophile also, and these satisfied my longing for great portable sound.  I used them working on an automobile assembly line and they got pretty dirty, but they held up like a champ.  The cord seems a little rubbery and very thin but it's quite durable.  I ended up using the foam earplugs, which I like to replace when they get grungy, -the replacement earplugs are not very expensive although the UPS shipping is!  I wear them at the gym now, and outdoors inlne skating.  I like the sound isolation.  One caveat: in order to hear the bass and also get sound isolation, they have to be inserted securely in one's ears.  I couldn't get a good seal until I bent the behind-the-ear piece to exert a slight inward pressure on the "ear-bud" into my ear.  Does that make sense?  It works, and so do these ear-canal phones!