Maybe sometimes it's just the luck of the draw. Some reviews say they were extremely careful and the cables still shorted on the Klipsches. I've also had a bad experience with Sennheiser earphones, where the area the remote usually is, started bubbling up slowly and looked like it was a balloon...

Oh, I didn't realize this. The reviews I've been reading for the 10 and 11 have a ton of complaints in regards to the build quality. I guess the 12 doesn't have too many reviews because people stopped buying them after they kept breaking after a year or two, so now I am hesitant..

Under what conditions will the volume buttons work? Only on Apple products?

So out of the responses in this thread, I think I might get the Klipsch X12i. I don't feel like the hassle of changing the cables and tips out of Shures and would prefer something easy out of the box, Echobox Finder X-1 I've only heard bad reviews about from my friends who bought them, Atomic...

What about devices without a USB port, such as cell phones?

But the Dragonfly connects to the onboard equipment via audio jack? How can it bypass it when it's directly connected into the onboard port?

Not being an audiophile, I don't exactly understand what the Dragonfly does. I thought the audio output quality was limited by the source file (the music file), and then the source hardware (the sound provided by my laptop)? How does adding in an extra layer of hardware on top of the inferior...

I probably won't get much quality or the full potential of earphones out of my laptop with onboard sound, but I'm willing to drop $500 if the sound isn't wasted (i.e. I don't want to buy an amp or anything, but I also don't want to waste my money if I don't have to). So $500 may or may not be a...