It’s easy to get caught up in. I find value in some different tech or approaches, like trying planar magnetic or open vs closed. But most of that can be found at reasonable prices.

If people want accurate sound reproduction, a decent set of monitor style headphones are their best bet. My favorite headphones are my audio technica studio monitors. They weren’t expensive but they give great sound reproduction which is what I’m interested in.

All the super expensive stuff is a combination of specific tuning, fancy materials and tech, or an appealing design coupled with heavy marketing and fomo exploitation.

So for anyone looking for general advice from someone that was almost sucked into audiophile land…

Quality matters for sure, but not up to the level some audiophiles say. Biggest feature that someone getting into better audio would observe is open vs closed back. It changes the soundstage noticeably. After that, decide if you prefer flat tuning (accurate to original recording) or something different. I actually really enjoy bass boosted for certain EDM but I don’t like that for much else so I don’t own any bass boosted headphones anymore.

Fitment is a whole other topic. I’m just talking about over ear headphones here.

Good news is, since you aren’t breaking the bank, you can get a new pair if you don’t like what you get and decide something else suites you better.

Edit: good source quality matters too.