SRH440 : They sound good, but break very easily

I have bought these headphones twice and I really wanted to like them. They sound really good and are not very uncomfortable to wear, although I occasionally suffered a bit of earpain when wearing them for many hours. However, there are reliability issues plaguing them. After about six months after buying the first pair, the right channel stopped working. Luckily this problem could be fixed. About 3 months after that the plastic just broke near the place where the earcup attaches to the rest of the system. So I bought the second pair hoping I was just unlucky. Nope, the first problem I described occured about 8 months after receiving and the second one about a year after that. I have 3 friends who all bought the same headphones and although theirs lasted much longer, these ultimately shared the same fate.