I've had to replace...a lot of wired earbuds. I have an entire shelf full of dead wired earbuds, from all sorts of manufacturers (Apple, RIM, cheapo $5 earbuds, Sony, Shure, ...), which almost uniformly failed in the same weird way: the right earbud becomes intermittently staticky after a few months. I checked with multiple devices (phones, computers), so it's probably not the socket, but more likely something to do with the way I tug on the cord when I run or walk?

Anyway, after burning through a lot of wired headphones, I've had the current AirPods Pro for over a year with no trouble, and the sound quality is the same to me (plus, noise cancellation is useful).