Factually true, but as they created and own pretty much the entire market for $300 headphones, one has to concede they have the title of high end headphones... high end doesnt necessarily mean highest quality.

Not really true - Sony and Sennheiser (as well as AKG and other less known companies) had the market covered already.

Audiophiles (broadly speaking, even if - like myself – they really don’t want to be called that) and people working with audio bought those, hardly anyone else. Those aren’t the people who buy Beats. That’s a totally different (and much smaller) market.

Getting people who don’t care about how their music sounds that much and who don’t work with audio to seriously consider buying $300 headphones, that’s the achievement.

Those people used to either use the headphones that came with their devices, or they bought some cheap headphones (way under $100, probably even way under $50). Beats managed to attract those people to their products and managed to sell them to them for substantially more than they were previously ready to spend on headphones.

That’s what’s meant when people talk about Beats creating a new market. Buying expensive headphones just wasn’t a mainstream thing before Beats.

Honestly, I don’t even have much of a problem with that. People spend more money on better headphones. Sure, they spend too much for merely average headphones, but those are already better than anything they had before and once they buy into them I think it becomes way easier to convince them to try other headphones. Who cares if they spend too much?

I guess it's a win-win for everyone: Beats got these people to spend $300 on headphones, then these people realize that they want to get real quality for their money and they go get something better :-).

I think the idea is that Beats expanded the market for $200-400 headphones. Yes, Sony sold headphones in that range, but they didn't sell them to every high school student who wanted to look cool.

No, at that price they sold to professionals and audiophiles who wanted the sound to actually sound properly, not muddy bass overflowing the mids and highs.

Apple definitely bought the brand, not the headphone tech. Otherwise with such a cash stash they would have bought any of Beyerdynamic, Grado, Sennheiser, or the newer entries to headphones like Marshall (the Major is so-so but the Monitor is awesome)

Audiophile pretentiousness aside, the article barely even mentions the actual hardware. Probably bought them for the music service & industry connections

This just further underlines the point that Beats are not actually high-end headphones, but fashion items. As such, they're incredibly vulnerable to changing tastes. In the areas around me, Beats have already plummeted from prominence or popularity among young people and cool people.

I've seen that happen, as well. People who can't really afford it pay a couple of hundred for a cool red B on their headphones, then they wisen up and realize that a cool S is a better choice.

Yup, they're the Air Jordan's of headphones. It's a fashion choice, not an audio quality choice.

True, but at one stage, Sony almost cornered the market for a specific pair of DJing headphones...until everyone realised they actually weren't too good, but still 'wanted to look cool'.

I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that most youth weren't begging their parents for $300 headphones before Beats came along.

It hadn't occurred to me until I've been reading through these postings, but it's true: high-end, expensive headphones have traditionally be tragically ugly, almost as though it was a badge of honor to suffer the ugly headphones, because one knew they were getting superior sound quality.

While I'm still such a fan of sound quality that I will continue purchasing terrible-looking headphones, I can't deny that Beats are sexy as hell.

Except Beats created a new market - a group of people who couldn't actually afford $300 headphones but bought them anyway. Just as you see people who buy iPhones and iPods but can't really afford them.

Reminds me of some long-early post when hackers gf begged him to buy her a new iPhone5. Instead the hacker somehow skinned and make her old iPhone4 to look like iPhone5 and she didn't even noticed.

Consumers, right? :)

High end is all about perception as indicated by price. Technical quality means almost nil.

But even on technical quality Beats bring something new to the table. They have a built in amp for christ's sake. They lowered the bar for amped audio to something the masses would use. It is a typical story of reducing friction/barrier to entry and reaping rewards.

Every conversation I see about beats speaks of them as garbage and pure marketing etc etc. But this is entirely missing the point of what made beats a success. You can choose to bury your head in the sand or you can open your eyes and actually learn something from the beats phenomenon.

> High end is all about perception as indicated by price. Technical quality means almost nil.

Sure, perfect match for Apple.

The fundamental mistake that audio geeks make with Beats is to think that the best headphone delivers a flat response.

Beats headphones are not designed to deliver music accurately, they are designed to make it sound cooler.

Beats is like the Instagram of music. Yeah, you'll get an objectively higher quality from Photoshop, but Instagram is easier to use and makes things look cool.

Apparently there are quality issues with Beats, but that is exactly the sort of problem that Apple is well-equipped to solve.

Surely this could be said about many other high-end fashion type brands. Expensive Nike trainers aren't worth what they sell for, most designer handbags are worth a fraction of what they sell for. These items also don't have any real technical merit to justify the price.

Fashion runs as a top-down economy. Most of the high-end designers are the ones driving innovation, and other designers/large corps soon imitate these styles a few years later for lower prices.

It doesn't matter if you're paying for sound quality, fashion, or the brand name. They cost $150-$300. That's higher-end.

Even within Beats own line there are the decidedly "lower" and "higher" end models.

The interesting thing, to me, about this is that Beats (the headphone, not the streaming music service) has the high price and is currently high-school chic, but similar things have been said about Apple. In Apple's case they're aided by the product's function being on par with the design.. The Beats stuff seems to consistently fall short of the quality of sound offered by Sennheiser and Sony's stuff.

it's not worth that price

hello beats audio employees

That doesn't mean they're not part of the higher-end headphone market.

High-end is a sonic category, not a price category. There are extremely expensive audio systems that are targeted towards concerts, etc..

One thing I've learned over the last 10 years in the tech world vs. the last 25 years in it, is that the mainstream (via its marketing catalyst) will override traditionally-held beliefs about the uses of technology and the words used to describe it.

Hence the public talking about "wifi" instead of "wireless ethernet connected to the internet."

The public doesn't know and doesn't respect the world as it was before the products became available which they feel express themselves.

I am/was with you in believing that high price doesn't mean "high-end," but that association has now become useless for communicating with the rest of the world.

The same can be said for the word "decimate." I've given up trying to use it properly and/or correct anyone. It's over. Also using "data" as plural. The world doesn't want a plan, it wants a dream.

That's an interesting definition. I think of it as a synonym of "upscale," which refers explicitly to high price but does generally have a connotation of high quality as well.

I agree - I think of "high-end" as indicative of price.

Probably better to call them luxury headphones. That doesn't carry the same connotation of quality that "high-end" does.

I agree 100% You get people listening to Beats headphones that pump so much bass that they destroy the mid and high end. It's stupid to pay that much money for a decidedly low-end product. Just because it's loud doesn't mean it's good. And beyond that, the actual physical quality of Beats headphones is absolute rubbish. I unfortunately bought into the hype my first year of college and picked up a pair and returned them a week later as they were falling apart and sounded like dirt. Bowers and Wilkins are far superior in basically every way.