[Boyne Shark]

I have an iRiver H10 6GB, and very pleased I am with it so far but I decided to splash out on a decent pair of those in ear canal earphones from Sony a few months back, all went well for about a month. After about a month the left phone suddenly went almost dead, there was hardly any sound from it and the right one was markedly duller too. Back to the shop went I for a replacement but this time opted for a slightly dearer Philips model which I have had for 2 months, untill now. The exact same thing has happened, the left phone is almost dead and a quick search of the net revealed.... nothing. But an in depth search of the darker parts of it turned up several people with the same problem and always the left phone.
Is this just my bad luck or have any others had this problem, I can't see the staff at Dixons replacing my recently replaced phones every couple of months forever............. .. or will they? Seriously I am getting a bit p***ed off paying €50 for something that may only last a couple of months, is there any point? Any worthwhile ideas?
I never listen to any music too loudly, the loudest I'd go would be 18 if it's a quiet piece of music in a noisy enviroment but usually I'd listen to it much lower than that. I spoke to a rep in Dixons who told me that a small portable device could not "blow" earphones, he found it hard to believe that I didn't plug them into a more powerful amp which I did not, ever. I have no idea if this information is accurate.
I have since bought a set of Philips noise reduction earphones, I'm hoping that if my H10 is somehow blowing these earphones with an excessive output then the small noise reduction circut between the H10 and the earphones will block this. Hopefully, if it still happens then I'm buying the cheapest shite earphones because there's not much else I can do.