its giving a very bad performance for such high price. sony earphones are not durable .....its connecting chord is easily getting damaged

A short lead is great if you have a remote for your player but with the extension it's annoying and very long, you end up stuffing the excess in your pocket, which leads you to exposed cables as described above!

I have been using a pair of earphones that I got with my Sharp Minidisk recorder, which I like very much. The problem is that they do not stay in my ears when I'm on the move. I expected the Sony MDR-EX71 to be at the very least, as good as the Sharps. Well I am very disappointed. The trouble is that you can't try in ear phones before you buy. I would only recommend these if you only listen to the radio, or are not much bothered with sound quality.

Yet another example of the inconsistent quality of Sony equipment.

Just to add my voice to others - I owned a pair of these for less than 6 months before the wire casing disintegrated in several places. I've been wandering round with sellotaped wire for a while, but now I'm off to get some Shure's or Sennheiser's. Don't buy the Sony MDR-EX71 headphones unless you want to be replacing them twice a year.

This MDR-EX71 earphone was great for a month but then failed. Sony are way over priced for what you get, $50 is way to much for this product. I found a generic that look exactly the same for ten dollars and sound just as good as the Sony's. So why buy the Sony's they are not worth it.

The first set of Sony MDR-EX71 headphones I bought were brilliant, until it decided to only work in one ear after 3 months. So I exchanged them to get another pair, which now give me electric shocks, and the cable has already split after only 2 months this time. If you lose one of those buds, which have a tendency of easily springing off down the road, then you have to go for a different size which can be very uncomfortable.

Absolute rubbish!

Overall, the sound quality of the Sony MDR-EX71 headphones is very good except for the bad treble. It's best feature is that they are easy to use, and the comfort of the fit into the ear. Without a good air seal there will be little or no bass. Of course, good bass is essential to enjoyment of music. But unfortunately true, high quality bass is hard to come by; and most listening has little and/or booming bass. The EX71 has a good pleasing bass.

I fail to understand how the Sony MDR-EX71 headphones are receiving the great reviews.

The Sony MDR-EX71 headphones definitely take the top spot in terms of sound quality. But Sony has sacrificed everything else in order to make them do this. I had these headphones for 8 weeks before the wiring broke in one speaker. I treat my electronics with care and I never stretched or bent the cable sharply, and this still happened. Sony, of course, don't want to know. As these are one of the most expensive pairs of in-ear headphones on the market, I am pretty angry about it!

The other major problem is the cable length. You cannot use these headphones to listen to a walkman that is in your trouser pocket, the cable is that short. You could use the included extension cable, but as the jack from the 'phones drops out of the extension's jack with the slightest jiggle, it's really not worth it.

In short, these headphones simply don't last.

Sony MDR-EX71 phones have a great sound, and would overall make a great product, if they'd last longer than 6 months. They are in particular great on planes, as they reduce engine noise a lot, even if you don't hear music. I always keep them in my ear. I'll definitely look for similar ones with better cables.

The Sony MDR-EX71 headphones are rubbish!! I took them on holiday, and was listening to my iPod Nano whilst sunbathing, and the external rubber sheath has totally melted! Sony are not interested!

I am now on to my second pair of Sony MDR-EX71 headphones. Both have suffered from the same fatal flaw.

The sound quality of these units is absolutely brilliant, and owners of MP3 / MD players with a lack of volume will appreciate the closed-chamber design, which gives you higher volume and better bass for the same power input.

Unfortunately, everything good about the sound quality is erased by an extremely poor choice in cable.

And no, I don't mean "one earpiece wire is longer than the other" - that's called street-style (well, used-to-be). Sony have been making headphones like this for 15 years. The problem is sheath quality. I'll explain:

Inside the cable to each earpiece, you have two thin copper cables that actually carry the sound. With Sony headphones, the copper is actually wound around some stronger nylon fibres, to make the cable less prone to breaking when tugged on - say, when you drop your Walkman. This is a fantastic idea, normally, but in the case of these headphones, the "sheath" or black rubber on the outside of the cable is too soft. So, as the wires inside twist and bend in regular operation, the sheath comes loose and eventually tears away completely, leaving you with really ugly and expensive black marks on all your shirts.

Sony provide a case to hold the earpieces together when not in use, and this is theoretically supposed to counteract the sheath problems by preventing twists. In practise, this just doesn't work however, as you'll often pull out one ear to hear someone talk or answer your phone, by which time a twist has started.