Actually, Beats by Dre have superb sound quality on par with competing headphones in the same price range and above, even. The reason many people complain is because they make the mistake of attempting to listen to genres such as Rock N' Roll, Indie Music, Punk, etc. when the product is clearly advertised as "The Hip Hopper's Head Phone". The sound profile simply isn't synchronized with the waves associated with those genres, so it's no wonder that the listening experience is unpleasant.