I have just put my iPod on at the end of a hard day to find out that frustratingly, they are knackered - AGAIN. I understand that earphones are never supposed to last forever but get this, I have had to go back to Apple three times since December to have them replaced. Three times! Each time I have a bought a different set and increased the price in the hope that the replacement will be of better value, but as of yet, non have lasted for longer than two months. My present ones are Denon earphones but I've had Senheisser and Sony before now.

I accept that good quality earphones cost money but I always assumed that what you were buying was comfort and quality of sound. I never supposed that you had to pay over a hundred pounds or something daft just to have something that wouldn't pack up on you in less than a couple of months.

What is going wrong? Every time I have a sudden reduction in the sound output from the left earphone, and on one occasion it went completely. I've done everything I can to prevent this to treating my earphones like crown jewels, but nothing seems to have worked. The only thing I can suggest is that I may use my earphones quite a lot (which I do - every day), and due to a bungled operation in my youth, I'm partially deaf in one ear, so I play them as loud as possible. Could this be what's killing them so quickly? If so, it hardly seems fair, as they're portable devices (surely) designed with some mind towards wear and tear.

Does or has anyone else suffered from this problem and could they enlighten me as to what might be the cause of it because I'm lost.

Thanks.