How to explain this? 1. People are stupid. 2. They like spending money on ostentatious crap. 3. People put a lot of money into their music players these days, since they have no money for anything else. 4. An ostensibly "high end" headphone set is maybe a complement to a good player, except that the "high end" in this case is just branding.
Jesus, dig this USA Today writeup from earlier this week.
So far, Beats has been the main driver behind the high-end headphones market, which now accounts for about 42% of the $1.2 billion spent on headphones in 2011, according to market research firm the NPD Group. Headphones priced at $100 or more make up only 7% of unit sales, up from 3% in 2010. But because of their premium price tag — most Beats headsets, for example, cost upwards of $300 — high-end headphones account for a chunk of revenue.
Respected electronics companies such as Sennheiser and Klipsch have always marketed premium headphones, but Beats made the segment cool, says NPD's Ben Arnold. "It is definitely about sound quality, but it is equally about the brand," he says. "You didn't really see that before."
