I've seen some discussion on here about the build quality of hifiman and how its, not known for being great. I've seen mixed reviews about their stuff in general. Now, recently I got a set of first gen HE-400's. Not the 400i, or the 400se, just 400. I saw that when these launched they seemed pretty well received by the community, and overall I'm very happy with mine. The construction seems pretty nice, they feel very sturdy and given that they're already a little over 10 years old they seem to have held up just fine. I'm also very happy with the sound quality, So i'm just trying to figure out where the HE line of headphones stands. It seems like the 400i and 400se are the bottom of the range, but the 1st gen 400s actually feel and sound quite premium, and when they launched I think they retailed for about $400 in 2013 (about $530 today). Today the HE-400se's are just $109 new. So what happened?
My focal spirit pros broke in a similar way, I see their design has not improved at all in the years.