If I were looking to spend that kind of money on headphones -- which, we should be clear, isn't that hard to do if you're serious about it -- I'd absolutely listen to these. Given Apple's general approach to usability and quality, it'd be insanely foolish to dismiss them without trying them.
>Honestly, I don't understand why you would buy these when there are a lot of established professional audio companies offering better sound at a cheaper price.
This is what I'm talking about. How do you KNOW that $other_headphones sound better? The Apple model isn't even available yet.
I mean, it's dead solid clear that Apple's making a big move here. It could fail. But they tend not to fail. If they're pricing these on par with serious high-end over-ear headphones, then they expect them to be able to compete with those high-end headphones on all the points people care about in that market.
& about that: Your counterexamples aren't in Apple's target market here at all. None of them are wireless, and none of them include noise cancellation.
Moreover, the Audeze are open backed, which (for the non headphone nerds still reading) means those around you can hear what you're listening to. You get great sound that way -- lots of folks would argue that the best sounding phones in the world are all open-backed -- but it means they're terrible choices for most modern headphone applications, like in a public place or open office.
I love me some Grados, but they have the same problem.
Apple's play here is against the high end wireless, ANC product in the market, not these audiophile-only options you mention. I have a $300 pair of ANC wireless Sennheisers that I typically used on planes (ha, ha; remember travel?) or in other contexts where I really needed isolation. They're clunky to use and have weird idiosyncrasies, but they do sound better than my Airpods Pro, and they work better for long flights.
If they broke, would I consider the new Maxes? Absolutely.