Whilst I dislike Beats, I admire them a lot. They entered a market where every company was focusing on sound quality first, aesthetics second and they came in with a new take: headphones should look good (I actually dislike the style but a lot of young people seem to love it), and should have a lot of bass to make certain types of music - music listened to by young people - sound good (again, I dislike this but many people love their sound).
hellbanTHIS comments that he lost a lot of respect for Apple when they bought Beats. Initially, I did too, but having learnt more about the company, I think it's a perfect fit. A lot of people say that you shouldn't buy a Mac because you can buy a Windows machine with the same spec. Often, they're right. But they're also missing the point completely - you don't buy a Mac for the memory, the CPU, the SSD - you buy it for the experience, the "it just works", and for how nice the hardware is. Beats is the exact same thing. People aren't buying the headphones for the sound quality, they're buying it for everything else.
Again, I'm no fan of Beats. But somewhere like Hacker News, we ought to admire their ingenuity in taking over a market where the existing players had completely ignored (and frankly, seemed oblivious to the presence of) a large untapped audience.
The comparison with Mac seems really spurious. Apple, at its best, redesigns hardware and software to find whole new ways of interacting intuitively with really very complicated computing devices. That is not comparable to making some headphones which are bass heavy.
Beats is like Apple, but with its objective value stripped out. i.e. just the fashion and marketing without any of the engineering excellence and innovation.
I completely agree. The typical Beats buyer who just want nice looking headphones that sound kickin'. Shame on their competitors for failing to understand their audience.
(And personally I wouldn't put much stock in what the audiophiles think. The homoeopathy-grade "facts" and "truths" which pervade much of the audiophile world are in my opinion far more contemptible.)
> Whilst I dislike Beats, I admire them a lot. They entered a market where every company was focusing on sound quality first
Haven’t people been having this exact same conversation about Bose for decades? Shitty quality, but aesthetics, a few whizzy features, and a lot of marketing that breathlessly claims they “sound better?”
Also Bang and Olufsen. Middling sound but beautiful aesthetics, and a price tag to make them the haute couture of audio?
I would say that Bose spent a lot of money trying to make their headphones aesthetically pleasing, but dealt with an aging market. Younger buyers naturally view Bose as something their parents would own.
It seems to me that the success of Beats really comes down to demographics. In fashion, it is difficult for a brand to jump generations, so there’s a natural opportunity for new brands to establish themselves with a younger generation.
Beats did everything right to take advantage of great timing.
You should check your premise. With companies like Bose and Bang & Olufson around for several decades, it's hard to imagine how your claim that they entered a market where every company was focused on sound quality first could be true.
The ingenious thing that Beats by Dre did was market the Bose sound and product to fans of hip hop, R&B, and pop electronica. All three of these genres, with their particularly die-hard listening audience, had never been able to be penetrated by a prior audio product besides extremely cheap Skullcandy offerings and the like. The profit margins are considerably higher on a $300 pair of headphones than on a $25 pair of headphones - especially if the Skullcandy and Beats by Dre options are capable of providing an equally-high fidelity output.
As an audio engineer, this of course makes me sad. But it is indeed genius.
The ergonomics seem right for walking about and catching buses/trains/trams. The Beats headphones my students sport include that socket on the headphone end so if the lead gets caught, the plug pulls out.
My huge Beyerdynamic cans would represent a health and safety issue if worn outside the house and the 400 Ohm impedance is not a good match for battery powered devices.
The humble Sennheiser HD201 headphones seem fairly popular for those less well-heeled students upgrading from the supplied ear-buds mind you. Lots of bang for the buck.
I agree, Apple is the perfect fit for something like that. They've always taken "boring" hardware and made it a fashion/status statement. They've done this with PCs, phones, music players and now headphones.
I just don't understand purchasing headphones as a fashion statement. I read it as "I want you to know I like popular brands over high quality and my own listening experience".
You don't buy beats for the sound, you buy beats to signal your tribal membership. People go to extraordinary lengths to join groups and send this membership signal. It's almost instinctual and done without a lot of thinking and good marketers know how to leverage this.
It's dumb, but it is what it is, and people wrap an awful lot of their identity up in their chosen tribe rather than just being themselves.
> I just don't understand purchasing headphones
> as a fashion statement. I read it as "I want
> you to know I like popular brands over high
> quality and my own listening experience".
Are your shoes and the rest of your clothing chosen strictly for their functional ability, with zero regard for fashion? If you have a car, what about that? Is your home painted in the cheapest and most durable paint, with zero regard for appearance? What about your laptop bag?
Beats aren't to my taste, although neither are $150 basketball shoes or a lot of other things. I get it, though.
> I just don't understand purchasing headphones as a fashion statement.
It's not necessarily a statement. Look: I write music. I like music with a good quality. When I buy speakers, I look for reviews on GearSlutz and aim at the best and most transparent ones. The same goes for headphones.
But at the same time, from the aesthetics standpoint, these headphones look hideous. In fact, most of professional audio monitors and headphones look ugly, in my opinion. I have a pair of AKG K77 headphones on right now, and another pair of heavy, bulky, closed AKG monitors at home. They sound great. But they're UGLY.
And if I wasn't that much into sound quality, I would definitely buy Dr Dre's phones instead. Sound quality is not something any person can perceive easily, and see value in; but the visual aesthetics is something that you can actually see with your eyes.
I just don't understand purchasing headphones as a fashion statement.
Do you understand why anybody buys anything for the way it looks or is it just headphones? It's no different from people wanting nice looking shoes, bags, sunglasses, jackets etc. Lots of people care about their appearance, and say what you want about Beats, but they certainly look better than the HD 280s. And realistically I bet you no one using beats headphones would get a better listening experience by changing headphones.
And for the cost of Beats I know I could spend c.£170 and get Sennheiser HD25s which are the best headphones I've ever used and I believe a lot of other people agree. This is nearly half the price of some Beats models.
I consider myself a bit of a an audiophile, and always argued that beats headphones are inferior. Their balance is abysmal, way too bass heavy, and shit plastic design. They however mastered marketing, which as it turns out wins the "game". My choice of headphones are Sol Republic (http://solrepublic.com/tracks-hd-on-ear-headphones-with-v10-...) or a nice German Sennheiser.
It's funny how a hobby (hi-fi, audiophile, whatever you want to call it) dominated by white men just happens to get so incensed over something marketed by and to the urban crowd.
Why aren't we angry about every other thing that's endorsed by celebrities? Why this one in particular? I don't think the folks behind Activia yogurt "played everybody for a fool" or "had us over a barrel from the beginning" because they hired Jamie Lee Curtie as a spokesperson. They certainly didn't spend their budget on inventing a better tasting yogurt or one with different cultures in it, that's for sure.
"Sound quality" is not a great reason to pick on Beats. Most headphones and speakers (under $1000 or so) aren't even trying to sound neutral; they're intentionally boosting certain frequencies and suppressing others. Beats headphones are obviously massively boosting the bass, but this isn't any less "accurate" than, say, your average Grado headphones and many enthusiasts (myself included) really enjoy those things.
Marco Arment had the perfect analogy, I think.
"Beats did to headphones what Starbucks did to coffee:
while they’re not the best, they’re a huge upgrade from
what most people were using before, and they’ve
dramatically increased the market and mainstream
acceptability of spending $200–400 on full-sized
headphones and wearing them in public."
While the changes brought by Beats and Starbucks haven't been entirely positive, even if you don't like them, they've definitely expanded the market. The net effect of Beats is that there are TONS of great headphones on the market now, more than there were ten years ago. For a guy like me who's a fan of that stuff that's good news even though I'm not a Beats customer.
Audiophiles will rant and rave about the poor quality of the headphones, and rightly so. I've not used Beats but it's pretty obvious from the reviews I've read that Beats headphones are overpriced crap.
However, I don't believe Dre played anybody like a fool. He and his co-founder simply understood that there was a gap in the market for "fashionable" headphones, and so he used his name and connections to make that happen.
It's an incredibly basic approach to launching a new product in an established market and I'm sure many other companies have sold overpriced crap in other industries to a wide consumer base for lots of $$$'s using the same technique.
Not really marketing alone. Geeks always seems to miss the form part of form and function. Look at the year of the linux desktop for years on end. Geeks see how much function linux has and think everyone should use it regardless of the form. See the original iPod or the iPhone not having removable batteries.
Beats headphones sound okay and often deliver the music the way many of their users want with heavier bass. Beats also makes headphones that have a much nicer form than any others I have seen.
I can't finely distinguish sound and when I researched headphones I decided on a Bose one that was rated as having worse sound quality than others in its price segment. It's an active noisecancelling one that had great ratings in that regard. One of the best items I ever bought, I commute by train (45-50m each way) and it's fantastic for reading uninterrupted.
Recently tried a Sennheiser in the same price segment that had excellent sound ratings and couldn't tell a difference. Wouldn't be shocked if I couldn't tell apart Beats from better sound quality ones either (and I'd guess it's the same for many people). Makes sense to base your decision on other factors then (style, noise cancelling capabilities).
Pretty sure the real audiophiles self select out of buying Beats and most people who do think the sound quality is sufficient.
Speaking as a wee bit of an audiophile, though not a brand snob....
Some folks can't tell, don't care or may even have a personal preference to the type of sound they like that "real audiophile" types would consider inferior. Personally I'm fine with this, it's your money you're free to spend it how you like, and if you enjoy what you bought and they make you happy then that's all that matters.
However...my friend's daughter was given a pair of Beats Solo's as a present and I tried them for an afternoon keeping an open mind and ignoring the celeb brand nonsense. Now whilst being well made and quite sturdy, they don't sound any better than the Sennheiser CX300 buds I picked up for GBP15.00 a few months earlier. In fact I thought the sound was inferior, and these Solo's retail for a whopping GBP160!
I think the point I'm trying to make is that these Beats things are definitely style over substance and the Beats project is basically a massive marketing scam. I think you could definitely tell the difference between Beats and similarly priced non-celeb unfancy workhorse cans.
Personally I own a pair of Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 80's, they're damned ugly things but by god they're comfy and have nice sound reproduction. I tried other makes in the same price range (AKG, Koss etc) but settled on the Beyers. I will admit I was slightly biased towards the Beyers because I used Beyer DT100 cans when I did radio broadcasting (they're pretty much industry standard, sturdy and neutral sounding) a few years back and I probably associate them with being "professional tools".
For walkabout MP3 listening I have a pair of Tesco own make in-ear buds. They cost me a fiver in-store and they sound just fine (I applied the principle of "ShitTronics" when I made that purchase decision :) Discussed here previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9173017)
"#4. They looked at what consumers wanted, then made it"
How is this a bad thing?
And in any case - I like my Beats, I had even more expensive Sennheiser headphones and I prefer the muddy, dirty, over-amplified bass of the Beats, because it works well with the music I listen to while programming. Yeah I know the Sennheiser headphones are probably "better" but I prefer something else. I just wish people didn't care as much, it's just headphones in the end.
The article's title is "How they played you like a fool" but in the article I feel like all I see are marketing gimmicks for the brand over and over.
Each item is basically a small marketing paragraph why beats did it in spite of the nerds telling them they had inferior quality and were overpriced, and then a big picture of a celebrity trying to look cool wearing beats.
#1. They found the golden niche
#2. They Ignored the critics and naysayers
#3. They pulled on the biggest celeb names they could find
#4. They looked at what consumers wanted, then made it
#5. They trusted their gut and risked it all
#6. They moved fast
#7. They had BIG brand help
#8. Don’t get cocky, never think you are done
This list reads like they are writing for the what used to be the underdog (Apple) but instead selling garbage to people who dont know any better.
We have a fantastic independent coffee shop at the end of our road. When a major coffee chain opened a few doors down, I asked him if he was worried. His reply: "No. The kind of people that drink coffee in Starbucks don't pay for coffee in independent coffee shops.".
It's the same here. Beats' target market is not people that love good quality headphones, but people that want fashionable headphones.
You can see the same argument over cars, phones, clothes, luggage, etc. It's hardly new.
I lost a lot of respect for Apple when they bought them. Beats are what a lot of Apple haters used to accuse them of being, overpriced junk that caters to gullible fashion victims.
it costs Beats a mere $14 to make according to some experts
I'm reasonably sure that Beats does not actually design nor make these headphones - they chose a design already produced by one of the many Chinese manufacturers, using existing parts, and asked for their brand to be put on it. This is common among many brands and is known as "OEM". Look at these, for example:
The extreme bass was also not something Beats invented - these generic/OEM manufacturers were producing headphones with the same type of sound before Beats, because of the general impression among most people that more bass means stronger, more powerful sound and therefore is more desirable. Beats just took this "generic cheap high-bass headphone" sound and used marketing to turn it into a fashion statement.
While for many products you would be right, for Beats you are wrong. They really did spend quite a while getting the design right. The design was also very controversial, while low end headphones had bass forward designs, they had build costs far lower than $14, and had lots of sound quality issues. (Beats is colored, but relatively cleanly so)
Anyways the design actually was fairly novel, you can read more here:
It isn't hard for most technically savvy people to see that these headphones are over-priced and over-rated. But it should make us think about all the marketing we do fall for.
I wonder what effect Beats will have on a generation of listeners already experiencing noise-induced-hearing-loss (NIHL). With the amplified bass, aren't users exposing themselves to low-end rumble all of the time?
I'm pretty sure we'll be confronted with a generation of deaf people pretty soon, given the extreme bass and the personal music players that can output high volumes, and the incessant barrage of noise (radio?) wherever you go.
Additionally, when mastering and mixing, does anyone take into account what their record would sound like on these things? Everyone buys excellent quality reference monitors with as close-to flat response as possible for revealing midrange, non-fatiguing high-end and punchy/deep (non-flabby) bass so they can produce the best sounding record. Some might even listen to it weighted for FM radio broadcasts and have a range of different speakers like those famous Yamaha NS10s (yuck!) to get a feel of how good/bad it sounds on normal home-users equipment.
But does anyone mix/master for these? Those records will sound as thin as a pancake on other speakers if they did; where's the balance?
Furthermore, since bass is mainly felt with the skin, is increased bass in these headphones really as effective as listening to a real speaker?
Guys, taste needs time to develop. That's why kids are a target for scumbags. Its not the kids fault. They buy what they understand. If they really love their music, they'll too buy Sennheisers in 20 years.
Its the fault of Dr.Dre. He uses the inexperience of kids to get the cash of their parents into his pockets. Nothing to admire. Kids have become business targets for the reckless. Dre belongs to these.
Imho beats headphones don't sound good. The bass is ridiculously overpowered and distorts nearly constantly.
Now, tastes are different, and you might want exactly this experience with that distorted bass.
If you create both the music and the speaker, like Dre does, and you wanted that experience, the right approach would have been to add such a distorted bass to your track during mixing/mastering, and then create headphones that faithfully output this signal.
This would ensure that you could enjoy Dre's tracks with that distorted bass on all your music equipment, like with your home hifi system, and if you used the beats headphones with other music, it would also output that other music truthfully.
So it becomes a bit of a standards issue. It's as if a very popular computer displays brand made displays where pixels that are 100% white will flicker wildly, but the displays brand was created by a guy known for his lowpoly wireframe art style, and this particular style looks great on those displays. So that combination might be fine, but you cannot use the displays to faithfully assess other images, really.
Yeah, I really concur with the sound quality argument. I got a pair of Beats on the cheap from a friend, but I got tired of wearing them after awhile and eventually switched to earbuds to just listening to my music cause of the sound quality. Ordered a pair of Sennheiser Momentums though, should be getting those by Saturday, so I'm hoping to return to a solid pair of over-ear headphones again.
Why is a mix of the songs (with extra bass) less "truthful" than the mix made by the record company employee? Both are valid interpretations of the music. If you prefer the former, why shouldn't you listen to it?
Indeed, (and I am only mentioning this because Plantronics is also on the chart) I bought a pair of Plantronics GameCom 367 and they were absolutely abysmal. They were hooked to a Yamaha RX-V373 audio receiver which in turn was optically connected to a PC so it couldn't have been a question about the configuration. Anyway, the sound was completely flat, almost no bass - certainly no punch whatsoever, the highs were absurdly cut and the middles painfully mediocre to say the least. The entire range was so bad that I was really frustrated I couldn't return them due to a hideous store policy at that time in RO. Not to mention that when you would pass the 75% volume mark the sound was completely distorted. What a complete disgrace. :(
The big takeaway: always test the product before you buy it never fall for the hype.
I had a support ticked open with Apple for long enough that they gave me a store credit to buy something. The amount was just enough to get a Beats Pill XL Bluetooth speaker, so I got one.
Wow, the thing changed my relationship with my music library. There are so many more occasions that I can listen to music just because of the convenience of being able to place the speaker wherever I am. Good build quality, great battery life, and I am happy with the sound quality.
I tried the free trial of the music streaming service, and it is a cut above the others. I decided to wait for what it becomes post-acquisition, though.
I had no prejudices about Beats prior to this. I don't understand the hate.
My laptop has a Beats by Dre logo for some reason, I have no idea why because the sound quality is no better than any other laptop I have used with bog-standard speakers.
[+] [-] kaolinite|11 years ago|reply
hellbanTHIS comments that he lost a lot of respect for Apple when they bought Beats. Initially, I did too, but having learnt more about the company, I think it's a perfect fit. A lot of people say that you shouldn't buy a Mac because you can buy a Windows machine with the same spec. Often, they're right. But they're also missing the point completely - you don't buy a Mac for the memory, the CPU, the SSD - you buy it for the experience, the "it just works", and for how nice the hardware is. Beats is the exact same thing. People aren't buying the headphones for the sound quality, they're buying it for everything else.
Again, I'm no fan of Beats. But somewhere like Hacker News, we ought to admire their ingenuity in taking over a market where the existing players had completely ignored (and frankly, seemed oblivious to the presence of) a large untapped audience.
[+] [-] Brakenshire|11 years ago|reply
Beats is like Apple, but with its objective value stripped out. i.e. just the fashion and marketing without any of the engineering excellence and innovation.
[+] [-] sjwright|11 years ago|reply
(And personally I wouldn't put much stock in what the audiophiles think. The homoeopathy-grade "facts" and "truths" which pervade much of the audiophile world are in my opinion far more contemptible.)
[+] [-] picks_at_nits|11 years ago|reply
Haven’t people been having this exact same conversation about Bose for decades? Shitty quality, but aesthetics, a few whizzy features, and a lot of marketing that breathlessly claims they “sound better?”
Also Bang and Olufsen. Middling sound but beautiful aesthetics, and a price tag to make them the haute couture of audio?
I would say that Bose spent a lot of money trying to make their headphones aesthetically pleasing, but dealt with an aging market. Younger buyers naturally view Bose as something their parents would own.
It seems to me that the success of Beats really comes down to demographics. In fashion, it is difficult for a brand to jump generations, so there’s a natural opportunity for new brands to establish themselves with a younger generation.
Beats did everything right to take advantage of great timing.
[+] [-] AndrewUnmuted|11 years ago|reply
The ingenious thing that Beats by Dre did was market the Bose sound and product to fans of hip hop, R&B, and pop electronica. All three of these genres, with their particularly die-hard listening audience, had never been able to be penetrated by a prior audio product besides extremely cheap Skullcandy offerings and the like. The profit margins are considerably higher on a $300 pair of headphones than on a $25 pair of headphones - especially if the Skullcandy and Beats by Dre options are capable of providing an equally-high fidelity output.
As an audio engineer, this of course makes me sad. But it is indeed genius.
[+] [-] keithpeter|11 years ago|reply
My huge Beyerdynamic cans would represent a health and safety issue if worn outside the house and the 400 Ohm impedance is not a good match for battery powered devices.
The humble Sennheiser HD201 headphones seem fairly popular for those less well-heeled students upgrading from the supplied ear-buds mind you. Lots of bang for the buck.
[+] [-] lentil_soup|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smrtinsert|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] creshal|11 years ago|reply
Can I feel old now? Where's my lawn?
> People aren't buying the headphones for the sound quality, they're buying it for everything else.
I find this worrying, really. Are we so desperate to consume that we're willing to buy shit just for sake of buying?
[+] [-] robmccoll|11 years ago|reply
http://en-us.sennheiser.com/professional-dj-headphones-noise...
http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-280-Pro-Headphones/dp/B0...
I just don't understand purchasing headphones as a fashion statement. I read it as "I want you to know I like popular brands over high quality and my own listening experience".
[+] [-] bane|11 years ago|reply
It's dumb, but it is what it is, and people wrap an awful lot of their identity up in their chosen tribe rather than just being themselves.
[+] [-] smackfu|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnBooty|11 years ago|reply
Beats aren't to my taste, although neither are $150 basketball shoes or a lot of other things. I get it, though.
[+] [-] golergka|11 years ago|reply
It's not necessarily a statement. Look: I write music. I like music with a good quality. When I buy speakers, I look for reviews on GearSlutz and aim at the best and most transparent ones. The same goes for headphones.
But at the same time, from the aesthetics standpoint, these headphones look hideous. In fact, most of professional audio monitors and headphones look ugly, in my opinion. I have a pair of AKG K77 headphones on right now, and another pair of heavy, bulky, closed AKG monitors at home. They sound great. But they're UGLY.
And if I wasn't that much into sound quality, I would definitely buy Dr Dre's phones instead. Sound quality is not something any person can perceive easily, and see value in; but the visual aesthetics is something that you can actually see with your eyes.
[+] [-] dagw|11 years ago|reply
Do you understand why anybody buys anything for the way it looks or is it just headphones? It's no different from people wanting nice looking shoes, bags, sunglasses, jackets etc. Lots of people care about their appearance, and say what you want about Beats, but they certainly look better than the HD 280s. And realistically I bet you no one using beats headphones would get a better listening experience by changing headphones.
[+] [-] DanBC|11 years ago|reply
Take something mastered for MP3; then badly rip it to MP3; then play it on a phone or other low cost MP3 player, while you're on a bus or subway.
Most people just can't tell the difference.
[+] [-] sehr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danbee|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] br3w5|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nodesocket|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] exodust|11 years ago|reply
http://www.thehouseofmarley.com/legend-anc.html
[+] [-] JohnBooty|11 years ago|reply
It's funny how a hobby (hi-fi, audiophile, whatever you want to call it) dominated by white men just happens to get so incensed over something marketed by and to the urban crowd.
Why aren't we angry about every other thing that's endorsed by celebrities? Why this one in particular? I don't think the folks behind Activia yogurt "played everybody for a fool" or "had us over a barrel from the beginning" because they hired Jamie Lee Curtie as a spokesperson. They certainly didn't spend their budget on inventing a better tasting yogurt or one with different cultures in it, that's for sure.
"Sound quality" is not a great reason to pick on Beats. Most headphones and speakers (under $1000 or so) aren't even trying to sound neutral; they're intentionally boosting certain frequencies and suppressing others. Beats headphones are obviously massively boosting the bass, but this isn't any less "accurate" than, say, your average Grado headphones and many enthusiasts (myself included) really enjoy those things.
Marco Arment had the perfect analogy, I think.
While the changes brought by Beats and Starbucks haven't been entirely positive, even if you don't like them, they've definitely expanded the market. The net effect of Beats is that there are TONS of great headphones on the market now, more than there were ten years ago. For a guy like me who's a fan of that stuff that's good news even though I'm not a Beats customer.[+] [-] simonswords82|11 years ago|reply
Audiophiles will rant and rave about the poor quality of the headphones, and rightly so. I've not used Beats but it's pretty obvious from the reviews I've read that Beats headphones are overpriced crap.
However, I don't believe Dre played anybody like a fool. He and his co-founder simply understood that there was a gap in the market for "fashionable" headphones, and so he used his name and connections to make that happen.
It's an incredibly basic approach to launching a new product in an established market and I'm sure many other companies have sold overpriced crap in other industries to a wide consumer base for lots of $$$'s using the same technique.
Edit: Fixed typo
[+] [-] matwood|11 years ago|reply
Beats headphones sound okay and often deliver the music the way many of their users want with heavier bass. Beats also makes headphones that have a much nicer form than any others I have seen.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] kriro|11 years ago|reply
Recently tried a Sennheiser in the same price segment that had excellent sound ratings and couldn't tell a difference. Wouldn't be shocked if I couldn't tell apart Beats from better sound quality ones either (and I'd guess it's the same for many people). Makes sense to base your decision on other factors then (style, noise cancelling capabilities).
Pretty sure the real audiophiles self select out of buying Beats and most people who do think the sound quality is sufficient.
[+] [-] teh_klev|11 years ago|reply
Some folks can't tell, don't care or may even have a personal preference to the type of sound they like that "real audiophile" types would consider inferior. Personally I'm fine with this, it's your money you're free to spend it how you like, and if you enjoy what you bought and they make you happy then that's all that matters.
However...my friend's daughter was given a pair of Beats Solo's as a present and I tried them for an afternoon keeping an open mind and ignoring the celeb brand nonsense. Now whilst being well made and quite sturdy, they don't sound any better than the Sennheiser CX300 buds I picked up for GBP15.00 a few months earlier. In fact I thought the sound was inferior, and these Solo's retail for a whopping GBP160!
I think the point I'm trying to make is that these Beats things are definitely style over substance and the Beats project is basically a massive marketing scam. I think you could definitely tell the difference between Beats and similarly priced non-celeb unfancy workhorse cans.
Personally I own a pair of Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 80's, they're damned ugly things but by god they're comfy and have nice sound reproduction. I tried other makes in the same price range (AKG, Koss etc) but settled on the Beyers. I will admit I was slightly biased towards the Beyers because I used Beyer DT100 cans when I did radio broadcasting (they're pretty much industry standard, sturdy and neutral sounding) a few years back and I probably associate them with being "professional tools".
For walkabout MP3 listening I have a pair of Tesco own make in-ear buds. They cost me a fiver in-store and they sound just fine (I applied the principle of "ShitTronics" when I made that purchase decision :) Discussed here previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9173017)
[+] [-] yasth|11 years ago|reply
Of course whether or not that is a good thing... eh.
[+] [-] gambiting|11 years ago|reply
How is this a bad thing?
And in any case - I like my Beats, I had even more expensive Sennheiser headphones and I prefer the muddy, dirty, over-amplified bass of the Beats, because it works well with the music I listen to while programming. Yeah I know the Sennheiser headphones are probably "better" but I prefer something else. I just wish people didn't care as much, it's just headphones in the end.
[+] [-] hobs|11 years ago|reply
Each item is basically a small marketing paragraph why beats did it in spite of the nerds telling them they had inferior quality and were overpriced, and then a big picture of a celebrity trying to look cool wearing beats.
#1. They found the golden niche
#2. They Ignored the critics and naysayers
#3. They pulled on the biggest celeb names they could find
#4. They looked at what consumers wanted, then made it
#5. They trusted their gut and risked it all
#6. They moved fast
#7. They had BIG brand help
#8. Don’t get cocky, never think you are done
This list reads like they are writing for the what used to be the underdog (Apple) but instead selling garbage to people who dont know any better.
Why should I laud this company?
[+] [-] blowski|11 years ago|reply
We have a fantastic independent coffee shop at the end of our road. When a major coffee chain opened a few doors down, I asked him if he was worried. His reply: "No. The kind of people that drink coffee in Starbucks don't pay for coffee in independent coffee shops.".
It's the same here. Beats' target market is not people that love good quality headphones, but people that want fashionable headphones.
You can see the same argument over cars, phones, clothes, luggage, etc. It's hardly new.
[+] [-] pconner|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andreasen|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hellbanTHIS|11 years ago|reply
I won't be switching to their new music service.
[+] [-] MrBuddyCasino|11 years ago|reply
It was once fashionable to wear them, now its fashionable to hate them. Truth is, they have gotten better - a lot.
[+] [-] userbinator|11 years ago|reply
I'm reasonably sure that Beats does not actually design nor make these headphones - they chose a design already produced by one of the many Chinese manufacturers, using existing parts, and asked for their brand to be put on it. This is common among many brands and is known as "OEM". Look at these, for example:
http://www.ovleng.com/index.php?m=index&a=productList&id=34
The extreme bass was also not something Beats invented - these generic/OEM manufacturers were producing headphones with the same type of sound before Beats, because of the general impression among most people that more bass means stronger, more powerful sound and therefore is more desirable. Beats just took this "generic cheap high-bass headphone" sound and used marketing to turn it into a fashion statement.
[+] [-] yasth|11 years ago|reply
Anyways the design actually was fairly novel, you can read more here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-19/designer-o...
[+] [-] mrThe|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bborud|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 72deluxe|11 years ago|reply
I'm pretty sure we'll be confronted with a generation of deaf people pretty soon, given the extreme bass and the personal music players that can output high volumes, and the incessant barrage of noise (radio?) wherever you go.
Additionally, when mastering and mixing, does anyone take into account what their record would sound like on these things? Everyone buys excellent quality reference monitors with as close-to flat response as possible for revealing midrange, non-fatiguing high-end and punchy/deep (non-flabby) bass so they can produce the best sounding record. Some might even listen to it weighted for FM radio broadcasts and have a range of different speakers like those famous Yamaha NS10s (yuck!) to get a feel of how good/bad it sounds on normal home-users equipment. But does anyone mix/master for these? Those records will sound as thin as a pancake on other speakers if they did; where's the balance?
Furthermore, since bass is mainly felt with the skin, is increased bass in these headphones really as effective as listening to a real speaker?
[+] [-] mironathetin|11 years ago|reply
Its the fault of Dr.Dre. He uses the inexperience of kids to get the cash of their parents into his pockets. Nothing to admire. Kids have become business targets for the reckless. Dre belongs to these.
[+] [-] q7|11 years ago|reply
Now, tastes are different, and you might want exactly this experience with that distorted bass.
If you create both the music and the speaker, like Dre does, and you wanted that experience, the right approach would have been to add such a distorted bass to your track during mixing/mastering, and then create headphones that faithfully output this signal.
This would ensure that you could enjoy Dre's tracks with that distorted bass on all your music equipment, like with your home hifi system, and if you used the beats headphones with other music, it would also output that other music truthfully.
So it becomes a bit of a standards issue. It's as if a very popular computer displays brand made displays where pixels that are 100% white will flicker wildly, but the displays brand was created by a guy known for his lowpoly wireframe art style, and this particular style looks great on those displays. So that combination might be fine, but you cannot use the displays to faithfully assess other images, really.
[+] [-] viiralvx|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icebraining|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] las_cases|11 years ago|reply
The big takeaway: always test the product before you buy it never fall for the hype.
[+] [-] pohl|11 years ago|reply
Wow, the thing changed my relationship with my music library. There are so many more occasions that I can listen to music just because of the convenience of being able to place the speaker wherever I am. Good build quality, great battery life, and I am happy with the sound quality.
I tried the free trial of the music streaming service, and it is a cut above the others. I decided to wait for what it becomes post-acquisition, though.
I had no prejudices about Beats prior to this. I don't understand the hate.
[+] [-] jmkni|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raverbashing|11 years ago|reply
But then again nobody is listening to the 5th symphony on Beats headphones (and, tbh, they probably sound better than Apple's, just because of size)
It's a fashion accessory. Like sunglasses, which sure, you'll protect your eyes, but that's not all there is to it.
It's easy to complain about marketing and dumb people, the lesson that needs to be taken is, what I may be missing in creating or marketing a product.