Beats by Dre is one of the biggest names in headphones.

If you don’t know this, you probably don’t follow pro basketball, you don’t shop for HTC phones and you don’t frequent Best Buy, commute in a big city or hang out in suburban shopping malls.

No matter. Know this: Beats are big business.

They’re a huge hit, and the kids continue to gobble them up even though they’re shamelessly overpriced — the over-the-ears go for between $180 and $400 a pair, and the earbuds start at $100 (Monster Cable, the corporate parent behind the Beats curtain, has taken heat for marking up its cables into the realm...