I think Apple makes really good headphones -- or at least, they make really good ear buds. I also have a pair of either Kenwood or Pioneer headphones that are pretty good. I'm pretty sure they're Kenwood; they only cost about $20 but they've lasted me for years now. My only complaint is they don't get loud enough, but for the sake of my hearing, that's probably a good thing!!
Depends how much you want to spend. I think Sennheiser, Grado, AKG, Beyerdynamic, and Shure to select a few, blow anything Apple and especially those nasty sounding Beats, have ever made. For the ultimate get a really nice powerful dedicated headphone amp and a set of electrostatics. Heaven.
I've been wondering about headphone brands lately, too. Seems like I used to have a pair of Optimus headphones, which was a Radio Shack brand, that I really liked. Of course, I could be wrong about that. All these years later the only thing I remember really well about that stereo was that the receiver and CD player were Optimus brand.
I can tell you whose headphones I was NOT impressed with, and that's Bose. Makes me agree with the post above that says to pass on anything hyped up in the media.