It was definitely in the upper range of prices for over-the-ear Bluetooth headphones, not like this even matters, because people just _did not_ pay $500+ for headphones before the Maxes dropped.
are you sure? why do you think this?
Most of these people, like you said, we’re likely not blowing $500+ on headphones before Apple made that concept mainstream.
Beats: $400 out the door. Bose Quiet Comfort, whichever is the most recent: similar. Sony also sells ~$350-ish noise cancelling headphones.
Going from $350 to $550 is roughly the normal apple premium.
This is $3k.
Granted, this is 100% anecdotal, but I’m seeing way more people rocking AirPods Max around the city every day than I remember ever seeing rocking over the ear headphones, let alone expensive ones.