[noingwhat]

I got my R01s for christmas this year and I have not been so impressed with the build quality. In just over a month one of the earbuds popped out where the Y cable splits and so I patched that up with a bit of solder and had nothing but trouble (headphones wire are so tiny) after that. Sometimes they worked, sometimes I had to play around with the DIY "Y-split" to fix the short, but eventually it would work. All of a sudden today, I am getting and EXTREMELY tinny sound, and can only half hear the vocals when listening to music. What could be causing this? It seems almost as if there is something wrong in the plug, but with the short in the Y-split I am not sure. Do you think it would be worth picking up a new plug from radioshack and clipping the wire to put that on, or should I really just bite the bullet and buy a new pair?
 
edit: It seems like the short is in fact at the plug, but the strangest thing is that the short acts almost like a vocal cut. I can still hear the instruments pretty well, a bit tinny, but the vocals are gone, which doesn't make sense to me. I know there is stuff like the soundstage that goes into headphones, but I am unsure if this is just in the drivers themselves, or if there is some sort of circuitry anywhere in the wire or earbuds that contribute to the soundquality, which is the reason I am so afraid of cutting off the plug.