>The popularity of Beats headphones, for instance, meant that hip hop producers could no longer just push the limiter until the sub bass begins to sound farty - their fans were all equipped to hear the differences now.
I think you're being overly charitable about how well Beats perform.
Not really. They're terrible headphones in the grand scheme of things - especially in terms of their price:performance - but they're a huge upgrade for most consumers.
That's probably the weakest compliment that I've heard for a set of headphones ever. I have something like 7 pairs of earbuds and I pine for the bass that I remember from my crummy Philips HS820 (foldable neckband) headphones.
For some reason the only place to get good earbuds is from someone who is selling something else: Samsung's in-ear earbuds sold with Galaxy devices and Apple's earbuds are both somewhere between OK and pretty good.
>For some reason the only place to get good earbuds is from someone who is selling something else
Or you buy quality stand-alones from Shure, Sennheiser, Beyer Dynamic, or Sony (and many more probably)? I always throw into my e-waste bin the Apple earbuds since they're both really low quality. The Shure SE215s are so much better than any bundled earbuds it's barely an opinion.
I think you're being overly charitable about how well Beats perform.