If you're not hearing the difference between 200$ headphones and 50$ ones or even 500$ vs 200$ and think it's foam then there's something wrong with your hearing. Like the parent said the differences get more subtle as you go up the range and at some point it becomes bullshit (gold HDMI cable stuff)
But everything is objectively better and the experience is better in 95% of the cases.
Likewise for music. When I listen to some music on my studio headphones I get precise sound and more detail, but in the end some music sounds worse than on cheap but loud bass heavy headphones.
I got to compare many different headphones from different manufacturers back-to-back, using my own music that I was familiar with.
Under $200 = garbage.
$200 - $500 = generally good and largely indistinguishable apart from the comfort of the headband and the padding.
I was about to buy a pair of HD600 headphones when for a lark I decided to try the "out of my budget" HD800 headphones. They were $1,500 at the time.
It was like night & day. I couldn't believe it. All other headphones rendered the sound of a double bass in a classical piece as a monotonal "thrum-thrum-thrum". With the HD800 it was like you were standing next to the thing. Every note, even the lowest, clearly distinct. You could hear the scrape of the bow across the strings. In orchestral pieces you could hear every intake of breath and every ruffled page.
Head drooping in defeat, I handed over my credit card and bought it right there. I was ruined. There is no going back.
I ended up re-listening to my entire music collection and re-watching every movie that had decent sound mastering. Some songs made the hair stand up on my arms, they gave me a sense of tingly pleasure they never had before.
Totally worth it, at least for me.
But 10x better? If you want to spend that extra $450 and can afford it then fine but that kind of price gradient sticks in my gullet.
>There's an exponential curve of cost vs quality
My 105mm macro and flash kit cost about a grand, and let me take pictures of hunting wasps from six inches away - something I couldn't do without them. Likewise, the headphones I use let me hear things I otherwise wouldn't. You can get stupid with money for sure in this space, but that doesn't make everything in this space stupid.