Yeah I didn’t think I‘d like them and I didn’t expect much from a Beats product, but since I got them for free with my iPad I thought I‘d get and try them. Wouldn’t have bought them though. And I have to say I am very pleasantly surprised by sound quality, bass isn’t too exaggerated, highs could be a little clearer and have more depth of sound but overall the headphones have quite good and pleasant sound.
And I‘d consider myself an audiophile since I‘ve been in bands, worked as DJ and hosted events for more than ten years and who always invested much in equipment, tried and compared a lot. My current hifi as reference is an Elac 2.1 bi-amped through $100/m premium speaker cable from an high-end amp with much effort in setup and room acoustics. An other league, sure, but being used to that the Beats X in comparison aren’t too shabby, absolutely passable and definitely good enough for commuting (which is my only use for headphones).