I decided to buy a pair of Beats headphones over he weekend. I agree with people who think $300 is too much to pay for the over-the-ear model, which is why the equivalent of $230 wasn't too bad.
My first couple of days' impression is the people who say they "suck" or are "crappy" don't know what they're talking about. I was able to hear a lot of subtle things in tracks I have heard a million times, and I was never able to overpower them. The build quality seems much better than the $50 Sony noise-canceling pair I had that was almost all plastic and wouldntyaknow broke before I had owned them for too long.
I love the foldability, the detachable cords and the integrated battery. I obviously hope this battery doesn't crap out as easily as some rechargeable AA batteries I own. The inline mic is something I can't believe isn't on every headphone set now. The noise canceling is great, and I didn't get whatever hissing sound a reviewer on Amazon mentioned. I turn it on and a lot of noise just disappears.
If people think differently on value and various sound quality traits, such as bass level, I get that. I love some good bass and these provide that. I don't need perfect reproduction of sound. I'm listening to compressed audio on portable devices.
That leads me to a related point: Maybe this will get Apple to dive into lossless music and/or using better codecs such as DTS. I was finally able to kind of tell that some songs are not all there. I could really sense a lack of some quality, especially in older recordings. But I'm not going to carry around a CD player, and I'm not going to start cluttering up my place with CDs again. This could be a great way for a Apple to separate from the pack in audio offerings and to push high-quality headphones it now sells. Add the ability to download lossless tracks over Beats Music for another $3 or so per month. I'd be interested to hear the difference.