It's a gimmick, "Raistline" explained it best:
""My reasoning is as follows.
On the Beats Audio HW side, it is overprices POS that lives on name brand along, much like BOSE. This is not to say the Hardware is bad, but rather that it is highly over-priced for what you get and can often get better quality for 1/3rd or less of the MSRP if you buy other brands.
As for the SW side of things Beats audio artificially increases the the lower end of the audio spectrum through audio "enhancement" algorithms which actually colors the sound and effects not only the Lower Bass but Mid-bass as well and imho ruins the music. It ruins it by changing the sound signature drastically from the original. Basically from all I have seen through wave-guide charts is that it adds or amplifies all frequencies under 120hz to be at an equal or higher level than the highest output for a single frequency. In short, it makes all music sound heavy in bass whether or not it was the artists original intention.""