I've owned two pairs of these Sony headphones. The sound in the right phone of my first pair mysteriously died after about six months. I looked into it and a few other people online had the same problem. Some blamed it on yanking the phones out by the wires but I never did that. I'm gentle as a lamb with my electronics and their accessories. So I figured it was a fluke and I bought another pair.It's been a bit more than six months and my latest pair just lost sound in the right phone. I guess that's twice as long as the warranty but I'm not spending sixty bucks a year on headphones.The sound quality is nice and they're comfortable. But the lousy quality is so frustrating that I can't give more than two stars.My advice - in-ear headphones are the only way to go for those of us who have a noisy commute on a subway or bus. But stay away from Sony Fontopia. I'm going to give the Sennheiser CX 300S a shot.