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I've ran Sony MDR-V150 Studio Monitor phones for years. They are relatively inexpensive and sound very good (don't think I've used a better sounding pair of phones). I've had 3-5 pairs of them over the last decade. For a few years I was giving them 2+ hours of use a day...During that time the 2 longevity issues with them came to light. The swivels for the cups are not as strong as they should be (though many breaks can be fixed with super glue); if you sit on it or step on it by accident you'll hear a sickening (once you realize what it was) click. The other problem is that the faux leather will peel off the cups pads if you get more than 1-2 years of heavy use out of it without breaking the cup swivels beyond repair. The permanently affixed cable is a STRONG point...It is ~7' of thick sturdy wire with a 1/8" plug (most include a 1/4" adapter). I don't think I ever managed to ruin the cord....Hell the cord is so strong that in highschool I was using it with a neck strap worn radio/MP3 recorder and it seemed that many times when I would get up the cord would snag on the chair ripping the phones off my head, the phone plug out of the MP3 recorder, and usually straining my neck....After a year of that the phones were fine but the jack on the MP3 recorder was damaged....
I believe they discontinued them a couple of years back...It would seem they were supplanted by a newer model with a sturdier cup swivel and headband....If that model is the same sonically and better mechanically then they are probably worth owning. I plan to try the new version when my elderly current pair dies*.
*It's north of 4 years old (I can't even remember when I got it), both failure points have been reached and fixed/ignored acceptably (albeit not as good as new), and some failures in the headband structure are also becoming apparent, but the cable and speakers are still good as new so I've been nursing them along as long as they will last.
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