Most of the arguments about Beats are coming from back when they were manufactured and developed by Monster. It was back then the music was crazy over-tuned for bass and they put in led to make them feel more heavy and premium etc.. And the overall build-quality was subpar.
Since then the products have improved with each generation, but people are still complaining and acting like the products are just the same as they were the first time around. It's like complaining about the Apple TV 4K being bad because the Apple TV Gen.2 was less than stellar. Or complaining about the Apple Watch having fiddly battery life because of the Apple Watch Series 0 even though we are at Series 3 now with much improved battery life.
This is quite common on the Internet. People are clinging onto old outdated arguments and what they consider "facts" and they keep spewing them all over the Internet without any real knowledge or experience with the newer generation of products.
I'm not saying the Beats lineup is the best one out there, it sure isn't but it's not even close to being as bad as people keep on telling themselves and everyone else. The products have improved a bunch over the years and the Beats Solo3 and Beats Studio3 Wireless are not bad headphones at all.
I currently own the B&O BeoPlay H9i and Beats Studio3 Wireless, and I have previously owned a bunch of wireless headphones. I had the Beats Studio2 Wireless, Bose QC35 (rev1), B&O BeoPlay H7, B&O BeoPlay H8, B&O BeoPlay H9, Sony WH-1000XM2 and I also own the Westone 4R and Shure SE846 IEM's. And I use Apple AirPods at work. And I have also tested the B&W P7 and PX.
In terms of overall audio quality the Beats Studio3 Wireless is not great compared to various B&O BeoPlay's and B&W, or the IEM's but they are not bad either. The sound is good, but the soundstage is narrow. Great for spoken word, but feels constrained in terms of a lot of music genres. But they do have competitive active noise cancellation, they are not onpar with the Bose QC35 and Sony WH-1000XM2 but they are not far behind. But they give the benefit of better battery life and all the benefits of featuring the Apple W1-chip which is the sole reason why I have kept them while I have got rid of many of the others.
I still prefer my B&O BeoPlay H9i's when sound quality is all that matters, there is no doubt about that. But when commuting and pure convenience is most important I prefer the Beats Studio3 Wireless because of the battery life, the ease of use provided by the Apple W1-chip and the fact that they feature narrower soundstage which is preferable when commuting as it makes it easier to listen to podcasts and spoken word content in noisy environments, they have great ANC, they are comfortable to wear and they have a decent microphone for calls.
The last part is a something almost everything else lacks completely. The microphone on the BeoPlay H7, H8, H9, B&W P7, PX and the microphone on the Bose QC35 and Sony WH-1000XM2 are complete garbage. Most of them doesn't have any half-decent quality to them at all and the few that does feature half-decent voice quality have zero form of isolation so they pick up a insane amount of background noise so unless you are sitting in a dead silent room they are still useless as the ones you are calling will be complaining about constant interruptive background noise during calls.
The Apple AirPods are GREAT for calling, the microphones are stellar compared to the rest but also the Beats Studio3 Wireless features microphones that are far beyond what the others provide.
It's not always all about sound quality. It's more about providing the perfect package in terms of sound quality, convenience (battery life, connectivity, ease of use), microphone, noise isolation/cancellation, comfort etc.. And Beats, especially the Beats Studio3 Wireless is still one of the better options out there for Apple users.
But people will keep on complaining about Beats like there is no tomorrow..
