For the last four years I’ve used both in-ear and on-ear Bose headphones. Twice I’ve had to replace the in-ear phones (both times for free under the Bose warranty, I use them a lot so the cables tend to break internally), but when my on-ear phones started to show signs of waer and tear I considered changing them for a set of new Bose headphones, preferably a noise cancelling pair. But since I’m not made of money (with all the iPad stuff i’ve been buying, along with a new laptop). I decided to go down another route: a simple refurb.

Before: old, tattered cushions and damaged cable

Initially I was only going to order a new cable, with the built in mic for use with the iPhone (fortunately the Bose design means it’s only a a 3.5mm jack on the headphones itself). But alas customer service told me I that wouldn’t work on my old headphones (I had  tried my local Bose suppliers but they said it would be cheaper and quicker to contact Bose directly). So a normal cable was ordered from the customer service (less than €6 for a 5 ft cable). And since I’m planning on keeping the headphones for another couple of years i also ordered some new ear cushions (€27) as the old ones were really tattered.

There was a delay of a few weeks waiting for the new parts to arrive, but once they did it was a simple 1 minute job to change the cushions, et voila : effectively new headphones for €35 as opposed to €150 for the equivalent new model OE2 headphones from the same company.  €35 mightn’t be very cheap compared to buying a new set of cheaper cans, but I’m expecting to get another few years out of these, so for that I consider it a bargain.

After : as good as new!