The best headphones transform the music. They reveal notes lost and whispers hidden and the rub of a finger down the string of a guitar. They expand the music and transport you. Whenever you move up a price point, the sound should move too. And that’s exactly what happened with the Fender FXA7 in-ear monitors (IEMs).
The last in-ear headphones in the $500 range I tried didn’t do that. They were a pair of Shure 535s. I loved my Shure 215 Special Editions and wanted to chase the lost bits of my music again, to find all the things I’d been missing. So I spent $455 (plus change to get them delivered in a day) and I queued up a mix of some of my favorite songs.
I have a pair of 535s. I love them. They are the greatest headphones ever except they are horribly uncomfortable. My Shure SRH 840s are not the best sounding earphones but are insanely comfortable. I wear them in the office even when I’m not listening to music.
I think branded headphones (Beats, Fender, Monster) are generally a crap-shoot but these sound pretty incredible and they look great if only I could get them w/o the huge Fender logo.