What a real quality pair of headphones looks like

I see a lot of people these days walking around listening to their Beats Audio headphones.  Every time I see that I think "idiot - you fell for their marketing ploy and spent way too much money on sub-par headphones."  Now that's very judgmental for me to say that, especially since I've never actually listened to a pair of Beats.  But I have listened to true high-quality headphones, and I've read enough reviews (e.g. here and here) to know that Beats is popular strictly because of a great marketing engine.  They have created this illusion that their product is great and desirable and as such, anything with their name and logo can command top-dollar prices.

Several years ago I purchased a pair of Sennheiser HD 590 headphones.  I'm going to talk about these headphones.  Again, I've never listened to Beats so I can't do a direct comparison, but I suspect Beats has few, if any, of the the following features.  I guess you could think of the following as a way to design the best headphones, the feature to include that give you a truly great product.

The first thing you notice with a pair of headphones like this is how comfortable they are.  The strap across the top of the head is fully padded, but most importantly the ear pieces very softly padded.  They are also large and fit around the ear instead of lying flat on the ear.  This makes them very comfortable for long periods of time.  Another great feature of these headphones is they are an "open" design.  An open headphone is one that allows both air and noise to pass through the headphones.  While wearing these headphones you can still hear the world around you as clearly as without the headphones.  This has one major benefit when it comes to comfort.  A typical "closed" headphone tries to isolate you from the sound world around you.  To do this, the ear cup must be pressed against your skull to try and block a lot of noise.  Since the open design is not trying to isolate you, the ear cups do not need to squeeze onto your head.  The end result is a VERY comfortable headphones.  You can listen to these for hours and never feel like you need to remove them to give your head and ears a break.

Another great feature is the thought that went into the wire.  Many headphones have one wire coming out each ear, whereas these headphones have a single wire on one side.  You don't realize how much the two-wire design gets tangled up until you use a single wire design.  Sennheiser also has a detachable wire at the ear piece.  So if the wire gets caught on something it won't rip the headphones from your head, instead the wire just comes unplugged.  They even include the adapter to let you listen to 1/4" headphone jacks in addition to the standard 1/8" jacks.  And to top it all off, all connectors are plated in gold which prevents them from oxidizing over time.  You could argue that good headphones should be wireless, but a wireless design has circuity in them and, more significantly, lots of battery.  Both of which add weight to the headphones which makes them less comfortable to listen to for long periods of time.  It also adds the hassle of having to charge them.

But the list of top quality features and components doesn't stop there.  The speakers use Neodymium magnets, which are the strongest known magents and produces better sound.  Also, all the wiring in the headphones is oxygen-free copper (OFC).  This is copper that has been smelted in a special way to prevent oxygen from bonding to the copper.  It's a more pure form of copper, it transmits electricity better than regular copper, which again results in better sound quality.  Both OFC and Neodymium cost more money which is why few manufactures use it.

Another great feature of Sennheiser headphones is the company support.  Sennhesier has been around for decades, and they support all of their products for a long time.  You can buy replacement parts for their products decades after the product was last manufactured.

To sum up, these Sennheiser HD 590 headphones are the most comfortable and best sounding headphones I've ever used.  It goes to show you when a company takes the time to design a truly great product, the results speak for themselves.  Of course, headphones like these aren't cheap.  I forget how much I paid for them, but it was about $300.  And that's where Beats headphones rub me the wrong way.  You can spend that much and more on Beats, and do they offer any of these features?

The one thing I've read over and over about Beats is they offer bass and volume.  Well if you want crappy bass and high volume from an overpriced headphone, by all means order some Beats.  But if you want good quality music with properly represented bass then look for a high-quality brand like Sennheiser or Grado.

Recently it was announced that Apple is buying Beats.  To me this perfectly sums up the point I'm trying to make.  To me, Apple is the pinnacle of average hardware that commands extremely high prices because their marketing department has convinced people "it's worth it."