First off I work for Sonic Electronix... and because of that I am truly fortunate to get to listen to a TON of headphones. I have a set of Monster Beats by Dre, Woodees Earbuds, and JayBird earbuds in addition to these Kicker HP541.

I was lucky enough to listen to these before buying them while at the CES show in early January, and I immediately fell in love with them. The quality of sound and other neat features that I seemingly didn't think about with other over-the-head style headphones just keep making me smile and I have had them for about 10 days now.

They are extremely comfortable and provide amazing bass response too, without disturbing my co-workers, which I cannot say about the Beats by Dre which sound like a boombox on my head to my wife when at home (or anyone else around like in an airport or at work). The additional selling point for me was the price and quality craftsmanship, which are both obvious as you see the price and the Kicker name means quality.

My favorite features are:

a) they require no batteries and deliver great bass still
b) the cord is much more durable (my beats cord shorted out already once)
c) the cord is longer
d) they do not disturb others around me because the sound stays inside for the user.
e) they are more comfortable.
f) you can spin one of the earphones out if you have a friend who wants to listen to what you are listening too... a really fun feature.

I HIGHLY recommend these headphones. Oh and one more feature I forgot is that you can have your own custom skin too. I got a pretty cool Kicker one for free while I was at CES from the Kicker booth :) so I cannot say if the skins are worth the price, but its pretty neat that my HP541 look different than the stock ones.