Does your iPod LOD spoil easily?

I have heard it before but I just try to not have any pressure on it.

I started out with a Silver Dragon Send Station Pocket Dock to straight mini. I started having problems, so I sent it back and for $10 had the send station removed and it was converted into a mini-mini cable. I use this now and have gone through 2 TURBODOCKS. After a year or so they both lost sound in one channel. I recently bought a LOD off ebay, similar to a turbodock, for $12. I figure if this last a year I won't mind having to spend another $12 for another one.
I'm hesistate to buy a more expensive one, but maybe I'd have better luck with them.

I had the exact same thing happen to my LOD last week. I'm now using my mini to mini that came with my amp. I at first thought the problem was with my amps plug sockets, but switching to a new cable solved the problem.

Try to place your rig with your LOD and cable on top. It helps to preserve it. Or you could try placing it within a pouch and secure it upright. This should help prevent stuff from placing pressure on the dock/cable.

Deleted.

Edited by labrat - 9/11/11 at 9:08pm

The best way to get around LOD failure is to DIY the plug. Get finely stranded cabling to reduce damage due to stress on the cable, and then drill a hole in the casing of the LOD to route the cable through. Give the LOD maybe 1-2 inches of a kink near the termination point on the ipod dock connector side for strain relief, and then hot glue/clamp/whatever the casing-wire point. This will give basically a right-angle connector. Hot glue the pin on the LOD as well. This will give excellent strain relief, and if you get finely stranded cabling, the flexing shouldn't be a problem. I think in the thread linked above someone might have done something similar to this. Of course, depending on the effort done, it may look a bit shoddy, but hey, it works. Another benefit is that the gentle curve used with straight plugs (which looks nice and elegant) is bypassed with just a straight line of cable, which will limit the bumps it may get (if you pair the "right angle" dock connector with a right angle mini connector). Sorry if this is overly convoluted; I don't know how to explain it any better >_>

EDIT: If you want, I would be able to build one, for minimal labor costs. However, I can't guarantee that it will look very pretty (I'm not the best with artistically drilling holes) and I really am not up to the task of building several cables for lots of people. That being said, I'm sure someone with more expertise and/or time to do this can be commissioned on this forum. Or you could do it yourself, which I most highly recommend if you know how to solder. I did build one for a friend before, and he said it worked fine, but it didn't look as nice as the LODs touted here.