Your Sennheiser examples are wired headphones which are (essentially) unpowered speakers.
The Apple one is technically a lot more complex with a good bluetooth chip (especially compared to the rest of the bluetooth offerings), some digital signal processing to make the 'simple' speakers sound better, a battery (+charging circuit) for 20 hours of wireless playback and a gyroscope to adjust the sound stage to your movement (and gives a decent Atmosphere representation).
I presume a big part of the price of these high-tech cans is contributed by research and software development, not by materials...
The price is steep as is the apple way, but I agree that saying "EGAD How can they charge as much as HD6-whatevers" when those headphones basically require an external amp just to run is just a little silly.
The Apple one is technically a lot more complex with a good bluetooth chip (especially compared to the rest of the bluetooth offerings), some digital signal processing to make the 'simple' speakers sound better, a battery (+charging circuit) for 20 hours of wireless playback and a gyroscope to adjust the sound stage to your movement (and gives a decent Atmosphere representation).
I presume a big part of the price of these high-tech cans is contributed by research and software development, not by materials...