I bought a pair of these in April and usually use them on my commute - about an hour each way, 5 days a week. While the sound quality has been OK (not stellar, but for the price pretty good), the build quality is qustionable.
I don't mistreat them - they are usually left plugged into the same device, so I'm not pulling the plug every three seconds - but this morning, after only around 5 months of use, the left ear crackled and died. Some pushing and pulling on the soft end of the "L" plug reveals a broken or intermittent connection. Add to that the odd adjustability design, general discomfort in initial use and unsuitability for extended wear (they start to pinch the ears after about 2 hours) and I really could not recommend these to anyone.
Time to go back to Sennheiser or Sony and spend a little more for a quality product...