Not joking! Its not priced according to sound quality, its priced for its versatility I would guess. The other pair that I had more recently that I had purchased again somehow disappeared on me and Ive never been able to find them, and it makes me very sad as these are no more feasibly affordable and the asking prices now are well around 5xs the MSRP. I did need to use the EQ from the Sony app to get it to sound the way I wanted. The laces work fine but not too fond of laces in mtb shoes because they seem to be an annoyance. They have velour where they touch your ears, and pleather on the inside (perforated) and outside. They are cute and simple. Speaking of control the touch sensor and lighting makes it easy to quickly mute myself during a stream and always lets me AND my stream know if I am muted. I havent used it extensively for phone calls, but I did try one and the party at the other end said quality was fine; sounded OK at my end too. Zumindest bei meinen Füßen ist das so.