I want to listen to white noise using headphones to help concentrate while coding, but I've been constantly plagued by crappy connectors which end up losing contact and muting one of the sides (or both).
Granted, I never spent more than 30$ on a head jack, but my SO did and it seemed to have the same fate.
Is it inevitable? I thought it was the fault of the headphone, but it happens on desktops and laptops as well. Are expensive headphones worthy and resistant to wear and tear? Or it's useless if after all I'll have to use the company's computer with a cheap connector anyway?
Are USB audio jacks any better in this sense? Or USB audio cards? Gold-plated connectors? Or I just have to get used to the idea of buying a new headphone every 1-2 years?
Edit: I am not talking about sound quality. I don't have a very fine hearing, so I don't care much about the overall quality of the sound. I just want to be able to hear it, without having to turn and fiddle with the connector every time I bump it. I expect costly headphones to invest in sound quality, but do they also ensure very lasting connectors, unlike the one my SO had? Also, if there is a way to avoid the limitation given by the lack of choice concerning my work hardware (such as USB, if it works), I'd like to hear about it.
Best Answer
From my experience, most of the time it's not the jack that breaks but one of the wires, usually near the plug:
The issue is very common if you use the same pair of headphones with pocket devices.
This (and broken jack too) can be repaired if you don't mind using soldering gun. New jacks can be bought at very low prices. You can cut the old one along with about 1 cm of cable (it can be already damaged and will fail sooner), remove another 1 cm of insulation and solder wires to appropriate jack leads.
Typical headphones without a microphone have 3-contact 'TRS' jacks like this one...
... but four wires in the cable. Two of them (usually of the same color) should be connected to the center lead (which corresponds to the sleeve). Other two cables should be soldered to left and right lead respectively. After soldering a new jack you should check if stereo isn't reversed, in that case you have to swap left and right wire in the jack.