When Beats first came to market — when it was run by Dr. Dre and hadn’t yet been bought by Apple — the ubiquitous headphones were famous for two things: being stylish and having a ton of bass. You didn’t need to be an audiophile to know those early headphones didn’t sound great, but Bluetooth audio was still nascent, so neither did their competition. At least they provided a fun sound for hip-hop. Most importantly, while their competition produced ugly black plastic cans, Beats was chic and worn by all the most stylish people — because they were paid to wear them, but still, it worked.

Beats is in a very different spot today. Not only has the sound quality of Bluetooth headphones dramatically improved, but so has the focus on design, with headphones like the Dyson OnTrac, Sonos Ace and Bose QuietComfort Ultra being pieces of elegant, modern product design. In short, Beats no longer has a monopoly on good looks, and a “fun” sound is no substitute for great audio quality. Even worse, they can’t compete directly with Apple’s own audio business, which includes their class-dominating AirPods and top-of-the-market AirPods Max headphones.

Beats, therefore, has a line of mid-range Bluetooth products that are only occasionally great — notably their amazing Powerbeats Pro workout earbuds, which compete with the Sennheiser Momentum Sport as the best workout earbuds. Their other strategy has been to collaborate with influencers to push their mid-range products to fans, and the Kim Kardashian version of the Beats Studio Pro is a prime example of that.

For the unfamiliar, the Studio Pro is the top-of-the-line product from Beats, initially released last year for $350. The “Kim” version comes in three neutral, skin-inspired tones: “Moon,” “Dune,” and “Earth.” This made sense for their collaborative Fit Pro earbuds, released in the same colors in 2022, because it made the earbuds seem friendlier and more subtle to wear. In a behind-the-scenes design video, Kardashian said, “Since you’re wearing something every day, I wanted them to be able to blend in.” True to promise, that works — they’re much less noticeable than a bright white or black earbud.

But this concept makes far less sense on a pair of over-ear headphones. No matter how pleasant the natural tones are, they’re still chunky headphones and don’t disappear from view. More importantly, the Studio Pro sound fine for the price but are completely uncompetitive against the Bose QuietComfort Ultra, which sound better, don’t feel any less premium, and have the best noise-cancellation tech on the market. Because of this, the Studio Pro is consistently reduced to $160, at which price they’re an underrated, great-value pair of headphones — but that’s only true for the standard colorways. To get the Kim colors, you have to pay a $200 premium, and that’s madness, especially since the standard “Sandstone” cream and “Deep Brown” colorways are almost as nice as the Kim versions.