Everything in a pair of headphones exists to move a small diaphragm accurately and hold it at a consistent distance from your ear. The parts that wear out first — pads and cable — are also the two that most affect how they sound.
7 parts — 4 you can see, 3 you can’t without opening it.
Mylar (PET), sometimes coated with titanium, beryllium, or a biocellulose composite
The diaphragm needs to be stiff enough not to flex and light enough to start and stop quickly. Coatings raise stiffness without adding much mass.
Enamelled copper or copper-clad aluminium wire
Copper-clad aluminium is lighter for the same conductivity, so the coil accelerates faster — at the cost of some power handling.
Neodymium-iron-boron
Neodymium gives a far stronger field per gram than ferrite, which is why modern headphones are light. It's also the most supply-constrained material in the product.
Polyurethane foam under protein leather, real leather, or velour
The pad sets the seal, and the seal sets the bass. This is a wear part that changes the sound as it flattens — replacing pads restores more than people expect.
Spring steel core in a polymer or leather wrap
The steel core provides constant clamping force across head sizes. Polymer-only headbands relax over time and lose their seal.
Glass-filled nylon, or aluminium and steel on more expensive models
This is the most-stressed structural part and the most common catastrophic failure point on folding designs.
Stranded copper (often OFC) in TPE or fabric braid
Flex life comes from strand count and jacket compound. Detachable cables exist because this is the part most likely to fail.
Driver size correlates weakly with sound quality. The acoustic design around the driver — the chamber volume, damping material, and port geometry — does more to shape the response than the diaphragm material named on the box.
Pads and detachable cables are designed to be replaced and should be, every couple of years. Hinges are the common break and are usually moulded into a larger assembly, so a cracked yoke often ends an otherwise working pair.
This page describes the category. Exploded reads the specific object in front of you — photograph your headphones and get a breakdown of its parts, with every guess labelled as a guess, then explore what could be built differently.
Analyze your headphones