> Cans from the fifties and sixties still work. Nobody wants to use them; they are heavy, uncomfortable, have poor performance, need an amp to drive, and use huge old school connectors. They are from a time when music was enjoyed seated in one place.

And there is still a market for them because some people still want to enjoy music seated and do nothing else at the same time. Of course, plenty more people want something else.

> The pinnacle of design is a product that works flawlessly until the day you are through with it

Indeed, but for maximum utility, the second hand market is included in the "you" here. Things can continue to be useful to someone long after the first owner is through with them.

Fair, I should probably say "the public" instead of "you". Many things enjoy a long second-hand life before the public's appetite for the product is gone.

>The pinnacle of design is a product that works flawlessly until the day you are through with it

What about the 2nd, 3rd, etc user of the item? You're ignoring the second hand market.

I use Cameras that were made in the 30's, they still work despite the original user being "through with it" some time ago.

By "huge old school connectors" I assume you mean the 1/4 inch TRS connector? Which is still totally normal on non-cheap headphones?

More like 5 pin DIN connectors (MIDI) but different. If you take a lot at old electronics you will see things for the first time.

Wouldn't that be too big? A typical failure point of all my wired headphones/buds has been the connector or whatever the connector plugs into. A bigger connector creates more leverage, which in turn creates more force, which has been a problem. So for mobile usage, wireless audio seems to just eliminate a whole range of problems and failure points, so it's not all good to use physical connectors?

Connectors break because the materials are cheap, not the force per se. Size doesn’t really matter.

I've had a ton of old headphones and I've never seen something like a 5 pin DIN connector. The old IBM keyboards do use a 5 pin DIN though.

Old keyboards in general if I remember correctly, and mice.

Keyboards yes, mice no. XT and AT keyboards had a big DIN plug until the PS/2 popularized mini DIN for both keyboard and mouse.

But in the XT/AT days mice just connected to the serial port with a 9 pin D sub. Mice weren't all that common in those days anyway as most programs were still text based.

> Nobody wants to use them; they are heavy, uncomfortable, have poor performance, need an amp to drive, and use huge old school connectors.

Are you thinking of Stax electrostatic headphones? That describes them, but they can sound amazing and people definitely still use them.

60s headphones used the same jacks we have now, but they don't last forever and the plastics then weren't as comfortable as the ones now.

Planned obsolescence isn't a good thing, it means that the thing will fall apart far sooner than it should. What you mean is simple engineering: the product's lifespan is not being artificially, consciously limited. They might think that you won't need it long, and plan for that, by choosing materials, construction methods etc accordingly, but this is not planned obsolescence.

I think planned obsolescence can be a not-bad thing if the obsolescence phase is actually planned.

Is the product going to be trashed? Is it made of recyclable materials? Does it have materials in it that are hazardous to the environment? Can it be easily disassembled so those materials can be processed differently?