[IBM]

You're not missing anything, don't worry. I was a former audiophile spending way too much money like everyone else at Head-fi.org

Then I realized the collective delusion everyone was living in when I forced myself to double-blind test headphones and various audio formats. Audiophiles are a tiny minority and you can find all of them poo-pooing this deal on Twitter (a lot of them overlap with Apple's customers), but regular people are just fine with Beats or Bose (another derided brand among audiophiles) products.

You can easily get sucked into that world and make yourself believe that those really expensive headphones are worth it, but it will be because you want to believe it after spending all that money.

[Akkuma]

I had the opportunity to test 4-5 headphones without paying a single penny. I also got to try out a pair that was a slightly better model than my old ones I had on hand and found the differences too minimal to think it was worth upgrading to. It was pretty obvious that there were differences between all the headphones. In other words, I disagree with the "You're not missing anything" statement.

I don't know what your definition of spending too much money is, but you can still appreciate good sounding headphones without going crazy and spending an insane amount or constantly getting different gear. I had my last set of headphones for at least 5 years or so until I blew the driver and all the bass was screwed up.

[moogleii]

I agree with some of your points (and have also forced friends to do double blind tests on their shiny new toys), but the problem is the price point. I'm not an audiophile either, but for $200, it better justify itself. To me, $200 is really expensive for headphones. And from the zillions of comments and reviews I've seen, you can get the same quality from a competitor for $50. It's borderline a Monster Cable scenario.