The companies are starting to respond to the new landscape!
My most recent headphone purchase was after watching a BRUTALLY honest interview with Daniel Sennheiser at CES this year... He bluntly admitted that his company for generations had been an engineering company, solely trying to engineer the finest sound... that they knew NOTHING about fashion & that their sales took a beating while they learned a lesson.. that (suddenly), that is important.
He was wearing their response around his neck... I bought a pair the same day! The on-ear Momentums in green. Better looking by far than anything Beats has made. Simultaneously retro & modern... classy, hip, elegant- one of the handsomest pairs of cans I've ever seen! I put them up there with the burl wood Beyerdynamics.
Lol, I'm glad (though I'd NEVER own a pair) that Beats pushed the market forward in this way. As much as I love the impeccable sound of my Grado SR80i's, they are a terrible looking design... nothing fashionable about them whatsoever.... I could tell a Beats owner all day about how they cost me $150 and stomp the piss out of their $300+ pair, have them listen to what REAL clean, true, deep bass sounds like- but at the end of it all they could say "yeah, but I'm not gonna be caught wearing those" & I have no response.
It feels good to now own my first pair of "designer" cans that are also sound engineered to kick oh so much ass! Btw, they come in at $150 as well.