sick of headphones breaking on me

[Razgriz]

So I have a pair of Creative EP-630's which are great, but they broke on me this morning, sound only comes out of one ear. I sent them to Creative in March of this year to fix this problem and they sent me a new pair. Now it's 7 months later and the damn things broke again.

This has basically happened to every pair of headphones I've had, Sony, Creative whatever, they don't last more than a year without the sound cutting out in one ear. from simple googling, I see that it has something to do with the cable fraying inside. I use my headphones every day and I wrap the cord around my iPod sometimes, but not as much as I used to. So what can I do to take care of my next pair of cheapo headphones (<$30) besides spend $100+ on headphones, I'm a broke ass college student. TIA.

Edit: would welcome any recommendations for earbuds/IEMs too.

 

[Deeko]

That used to happen to me ALL the time. I started getting headphones with a flexible stretchy thing attached to the end of it, I guess that prevents the cable from being damaged at the end. Hasn't happened with this pair, and I've had them for a couple of years.