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? :)