Hundreds of millions of people use the free headphones that come with their devices. The people who spend $200 on headphones usually have some higher requirements for audio quality.
Headphone snobs look down their nose at beats, and for good reason - they are way overpriced for their actual sound quality - but that doesn't mean they aren't good headphones.
The problem is that Beats is charging $300 for a $150 set of headphones, not that beats is charging $300 for a $15 set of headphones. They're way better than anything you're going to get for free with your phone.
> They're way better than anything you're going to get for free with your phone.
I'm not sure I can, in good faith, agree with this. The bass is blown way out of proportion to the rest of the track, the highs powered up to compensate for the bass, and the mids are lost in the power struggle. And this is in Beats' flagship "Solo" line.
That description of the sound? It applies to pretty much every default set of headphones out there.
They're hardly unusable, but I would have a hard time justifying paying $15 for them. Then again, I wear Kirkland jeans and conference swag t-shirts, as a measure of my "fashion" factor.
The ergonomics of the AirPods are definitely worth a lot to many people. When used in conjunction with the Apple Watch, you never have to reach for your iPhone for audio. It works great and the sound is adequate when I'm exercising or doing some other outdoor activity. The AirPods are not audiophile quality but they are not horrible either.