OK, I dislike the sound of Beats as much as the next guy, but I'm in the mood to play some Devil's Advocate.
One of the main concerns about Beats by Dre is that consumers wind up paying heavily for endorsement costs. Beats headphones would cost much less if Dr. Dre's name wasn't slapped on them. Cool. I get it.
However, Fischer Audio and Brainwavs are
just as guilty of this as Beats by Dre. First, let me introduce you to a little company called Yoga. They are an OEM manufacturer, which means that they make products that they sell in bulk to other manufacturers/companies, like Brainwavs and Fischer.
This is the Yoga CD-880.
These and
these are the Brainwavs HM5 and the Fischer Audio FA-003, respectively. Look familiar? That's because they're identical. Yoga did the research, development, and most of the other legwork in creating these headphones. They then sold them to another company, called Jaycar who sells the
exact same headphone as Fischer and Brainwavs for
$50 plus shipping and handling
. Assuming that Jaycar is pulling a profit, these headphones could not have been more than $45 dollars. When the name "Dr. Dre" is put on a pair of $50 headphones and the price goes up to $199, Head-Fi gets upset. However, when the names "Fischer Audio" and "Brainwavs" get put on a pair of $50 headphones, with no manufacturing, research or development costs to either company, and the price goes up to $150, it's suddenly OK? I think not.
Secondly, Beats by Dre caters to an
entirely different market demographic with different needs and desires than us audiophiles. Monster took into account that a large amount of people like bloated bass that drowns everything else out. If you live anywhere near anything that resembles a road, you'd know that a large amount of people do this with car stereos. Regardless of anyone's personal opinions, (I despise this sound, actually.) Beats' sound signature is something that a lot of people like. Secondly, the internal amp inside the Beats, especially for a consumer-grade headphone, is a pretty remarkable idea. Monster knew that next to no one was going to properly amplify these things, so they put in an internal amp. I'd love to see a company like AKG or Audio-Technica do this. Could you imagine an audiophile-style pair of portable headphones with a decent rechargeable amp, and maybe even a high quality DAC built in? That'd be perfect for a portable setup. No more bulky amps/DACs that are bigger than our iPods/Cowons. Monster really did a lot right with the Beats from a non-fidelity point of view, and considering that people seem to like boomy bass that overrides the treble and mids, they did exactly what they intended to do sound quality-wise as well.
Another issue people seem to have with the Beats is that they are advertised as "Studio Headphones". That's...pretty inexcusable. Still not as bad as Sennheiser adding foam to their HD 555s to make them sound worse than the otherwise identical HD 595s.
TL;DR: Yeah, Monster does some pretty messed up stuff to deceive their consumers. So do 1/2 of the brands in your signature. Holding Monster to a different standard than other companies isn't fair. Regardless, Beats do exactly what they're designed to and they provide a sound signature that a lot of people like.
Edit: The Jaycar link says $79, but that's in Australian dollars. If you go to the American webpage, it's $50 with a $20 S&H charge. Sorry for any inconvenience.