The sound quality of the EarPods, which presumably the AirPods are based on, is good but definitely a very subjective thing. I've found them to be excellent for

The sound quality of the EarPods, which presumably the AirPods are based on, is good but definitely a very subjective thing. I've found them to be excellent for the price/form factor. Things I like: - Great, deep bass response (when you position them to create a good seal between your ears and the outside world). - Reasonably detailed mids. - Somewhat diminished but still relatively detailed highs. - Comfortable for wearing for long periods of time. - Isolation isn't too strong, even with a good seal (helpful for maintaining situational awareness). My only complaint is that between different pairs, the ability to get a comfortable seal can be inconsistent. However, I wouldn't consider them high end, and while their lack of noise isolation can be a downside at times, given the cost and the excellent bass and overall clarity, I think they're a great earphones. If the AirPods have better SQ, that'd be awesome; but if they have the same sound quality but without the wires and with good (and hopefully passthrough when possible) audio compression, I'll be eager to buy a pair. And I think as more and more people wear them, they'll quickly become fashionable to wear. On a related note, I hope Apple and others are eventually able to move to lossless, even lower latency compression for wireless audio. I absolutely love the lossless compression the AirPort Express provides via AirPlay.