Had a pair of these for almost a year, the finally wore out after nearly every day use, not bad for $6. I compared them to my sisters $30 skullcandy ear buds and her $40 sennheiser ear buds and they sounded much better than the skullcandys and pretty close to if not better than sennheisers.
I have pretty small ears, these start to hurt my ears after wearing them for around 20+ minutes. They initially gave me a headache too but that seems to be partly fixed after 3 nights of burn in. While they do sound a bit better than my Apple EarPods (which shouldn't really be surprising), I really can't use these for long and see myself switching back after wearing them for too long.
LQDForceThat may be the case, but I don't know If I would spend more money on tips than on the headphones themselves. Not to mention they may still not satisfy me, IEMs might not be for me after all.
The bad sound quality may also be due to static electricity. These earbuds seem to be really fond of conduction static and making the sound quality terrible.
If your earbuds sound like crap, try burning them in at really loud volumes for several days. If that doesn't work, you probably got a defective pair. I've got some nice gear for comparison and the monoprice buds should sound good if they're working right and you can get a good seal.