By CHARLES ARTHUR and SAMUEL GIBBS

ANYONE considering buying headphones for a young relative this Christmas, take care before splashing out the £150 (RM805) or more that the most fashionable – the Beats, SkullCandy or Urbanears models – can cost.

Each brand marks them out as one of a “tribe”, regardless of sound quality. Whereas 20 years ago the most important thing for a teenager was the brand of trainer on their feet – Nike, Reebok or Adidas – now it’s the brand covering their ears that matters.

Beats headphones, with their red cord and large “b” on the earpieces, began appearing in music videos in late 2008, largely through the efforts of the company’s co-founders, rapper Dr Dre and music entrepreneur Jimmy Iovine. That sparked rocketing sales to a teenage demographic looking for a new way to distinguish themselves from their peers.

In doing so, Beats’ emergence showed that high-priced headphones would sell, becoming as much a fashion accessory as a gadget, commanding prices over £200 (RM1,073) – a bracket previously reserved for the audiophile niche.

A decade ago, the white tendrils of an iPod’s headphones might have marked the wearer out as trendy; nowadays it makes them just one of the crowd, and Apple’s in-ear headphones are too common to bother with. A teenager wanting to stand out needs something big – and bold.

“Companies like Beats and SkullCandy have realised that kids today want something that looks better, over questions of sound quality,” says Sam Ruffle, who works at Kink, a marketing agency whose clients include SkullCandy.

And those kids (or their parents) will pay: worldwide, the market for headphones will be worth over £5bil (RM26.8bil) this year, with 284 million units shipped, according to the consumer consultancy Futuresource. Over-ear headphones grabbed half of sales. And Beats alone will grab around £1.25bil (RM6.7bil) – while the total market is forecast to grow by 5% annually for the next five years.

SkullCandy was originally designed for skiers and snowboarders, by Rick Alden, who got the idea on a chairlift in Park City, Utah. Starting in 2003, he managed to persuade skating and skiing shops to stock the product, which became known as an “extreme sports” brand.

Urbanears, meanwhile, brought Scandinavian design and a flourish of colour to the burgeoning headphone market, releasing two “collections” of headphones a year in limited-edition colours.
The continued success of Beats brought competition as these other brands began chasing the new demographic of people willing to spend money to wear their branding choice on their ears. SkullCandy moved off the slopes and onto the high street. Now, they are more likely to be seen on the bus than on the piste.

Audiophiles aren’t impressed by the brigade of bolshy Beats products, which often pride bass and look over acoustic refinement.
“I just bought a set of the Beats Solo HD headphones – it’s a Christmas gift for my 13-year-old daughter,” Chris Miller, a software engineer, said, adding: “I think they are overpriced and you are paying a premium for the brand name. They aren’t bad, but I have headphones that sound better for half the price that I paid for the Beats.”

Sound quality, though, isn’t necessarily the point – which may have been missed by more traditional “audiophile” brands such as Germany’s Sennheiser, Dutch brand Philips and the American Bose, who were caught unaware that colouring the earpiece and cord green or red could affect sales as much as their sound quality.

Andy Watson of Futuresource says you might struggle to tell some headphones apart at the factory. “With everyone owning the same generic-looking personal audio player or mobile phone, it’s the headphones that do the differentiating. There is certainly cachet and brand equity attached to many of the brands, beyond their intrinsic value. Much of it is about positioning a lifestyle rather than a product.”

Yet the growing tribalism of headphone ownership has led to derision in some quarters – such as the blog “Long Way From Compton”, which features pictures of people wearing Beats headphones, and measuring the distance from there to the notorious gang-ridden Los Angeles district from which Dr Dre emerged. — Guardian News & Media