Beats Headphones Have Useless Bits of Metal in Them to Make Them Feel "Premium"

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a16087/beats-headphones-weighted/

 

No big shock, but really, this is just wrong. 20.00 in parts for 200.00 headphones? That's criminal.

Wish they had a pic of the four parts...

 

EDIT: okay nvm i guess from the pic you can sort of see the pieces theyre talking about

Edited June 19, 2015 by colunga

as if this isnt the case with "high end audiophile gold plated clipped angel wing stuffing" bullshit already, just cause it's dre beats doesn't make it more wrong/lame. all of this stuff is just brand wank.

  On 6/19/2015 at 4:51 PM, colunga said:

Wish they had a pic of the four parts...

 

EDIT: okay nvm i guess from the pic you can sort of see the pieces theyre talking about

Link from the article: https://medium.com/@BoltVC/how-it-s-made-series-beats-by-dre-154aae384b36

 

http://i.imgur.com/JSgD41F.jpg

I imagine that is a common practice for lots of brands' products.

 

 

They still sound like shit though.

The hyped up low end on these headphones is just ridiculous.. its how I imagine fish hear music

Edited June 19, 2015 by Chartreuse

Apple has also deregistered Monster from the MFi certification process bc of their lawsuit against Beats.

  On 6/19/2015 at 6:22 PM, Rubin Farr said:

Apple has also deregistered Monster from the MFi certification process bc of their lawsuit against Beats.

 

I'm assuming this is damning but I have no idea what this sentence actually means.

Anyone I see walking around in a pair of these I just laugh at. Not if they are kids or teens ('cause we are all guilty of being a bit twatish back then) but blokes in their late twenties + The lime green one's especially. I mean how much do you need to advertise what a complete cunt you actually are??? Hahah cracks me up every single time lol.

  On 6/19/2015 at 5:19 PM, Chartreuse said:

The hyped up low end on these headphones is just ridiculous.. its how I imagine fish hear music

 

wwwwwwwwwwwwwww

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[-;

  On 6/19/2015 at 6:41 PM, beerwolf said:

Anyone I see walking around in a pair of these I just laugh at. Not if they are kids or teens ('cause we are all guilty of being a bit twatish back then) but blokes in their late twenties + The lime green one's especially. I mean how much do you need to advertise what a complete cunt you actually are??? Hahah cracks me up every single time lol.

 

I laugh at the teens too, but i've never stopped being a complete cunt. lol, dleetr, the complete cunt.

  On 6/19/2015 at 6:22 PM, Rubin Farr said:

Apple has also deregistered Monster from the MFi certification process bc of their lawsuit against Beats.

Yeah, Apple seems to be playing hardball (read: being a dick) more and more these days...

 

Then again, this is Monster, the company that is king of selling horribly overpriced "premium" cables and products that are not worth the package they come in...

To play devils advocate, if anyone be daft enough to buy them...bit silly.

I guess no one deserves to be ripped off, but 200 quid would get you 'ok' AKG's.

 

Put it this way, if by now we're not aware of the total shite we're fed by advertising etc, etc then we need to wake up, sharpish.

Edited June 19, 2015 by KyoAcid

'Auditioned' a pair of the wireless beats the other day at best buy. Was not impressed with the sound, but they were certainly comfortable, much more comfortable than my Grados in fact.

I have $12,000 headphones that can only be driven with the built-in tube pre-amp, and the things weigh about 72 kg. So I add about 500 helium balloons to them to lighten the load on my neck and lower back. Audiophiles be conplaining that the helium balloon hack is lowering the perceived quality and also wasting limited supply of helium, but I'd rather be healthy than an asshole.

  On 6/19/2015 at 6:41 PM, beerwolf said:

Anyone I see walking around in a pair of these I just laugh at. Not if they are kids or teens ('cause we are all guilty of being a bit twatish back then) but blokes in their late twenties + The lime green one's especially. I mean how much do you need to advertise what a complete cunt you actually are??? Hahah cracks me up every single time lol.

 

Edited June 20, 2015 by mokz

  On 6/19/2015 at 5:12 PM, patternoverlap said:

I imagine that is a common practice for lots of brands' products.

 

 

They still sound like shit though.

They have a flat frequency response of 20Hz, which means no dynamic range. I realize 20Hz is supposed to be the range of human hearing (or something to that effect), but usually the "better" brands make their non-audiophile headphones with a range of 18-21Hz. This at least gives the illusion of some soundstage.

 

As far as build quality, that's standard practice for folding headphones. Look at the Sennheiser Urbanite XL's or the V-Moda M80/100's; they have those "hinges" as well.

 

I've been pleased with my Momentum/Momentum II's for iPhone use, and the build quality is just right.

  On 6/20/2015 at 5:28 AM, Shroommdot said:

 

  On 6/19/2015 at 5:12 PM, patternoverlap said:

I imagine that is a common practice for lots of brands' products.

 

 

They still sound like shit though.

They have a flat frequency response of 20Hz, which means no dynamic range.

 

wat

  On 6/20/2015 at 12:36 PM, eugene said:

wat

The sound that comes out of the headphones is "flat". The minimum frequency response is 20Hz and so is the maximum.

 

Listening to something like post-rock, where it's important to have that soft/loud dynamic makes this glaringly apparent.

lol

You're paying extra for the brand. No one that knows anything about audio has ever gone 'You know what, I think I'm gonna buy a pair of beats.'

 

People buy them because they look nice, Beats is a well known brand and they assume they'll sound good cos of the price tag.

 

You can call them dickheads for charging so much, but they know exactly how to advertise their product in order to make huge amounts of money.

  On 6/20/2015 at 5:00 PM, Shroommdot said:

 

  On 6/20/2015 at 12:36 PM, eugene said:

wat

The sound that comes out of the headphones is "flat". The minimum frequency response is 20Hz and so is the maximum.

 

Listening to something like post-rock, where it's important to have that soft/loud dynamic makes this glaringly apparent.

 

 

stop while you're behind, dynamic range has nothing to do with frequency response. one is to do with volume, the other pitch.

Beats products and "technology" were both engineered by Monster. For a while, HTC owned 50% of Beats Audio, and HP got in on the action for a while too. During that time, HTC slapped the 'b' logo on their smartphones and included various models of Beats earbuds - flagship phones got better sounding earbuds than cheap phones did. "Beats Technology" was the marketing tactic, and that tech was nothing more than a typical "Hip-Hop" EQ set as the default in the driver/DSP. Beats was literally selling an equalizer curve, and licensing it to other electronics makers so that even if the consumer didn't have Beats headphones he could at least still be part of the in-crowd listening to music via Beats Technology. Dre, Monster, HP, HTC, and now Apple are taking turns suckling from the teats of rap-minded sheeple, bless their hearts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od8i-cfZfvs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNUC6UQ_Qvg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXGmHgBWcKA

Incidentally, and I HATE to say this - the top-model Beats that came with my HTC phone actually DO sound better than most buds I've heard in the $0-100 range. I travel on airplanes frequently and my preferred way to listen to music is through the Beats buds (good mid-freq passive noise isolation) with a set of Bose QC15 over top (not for audio, just for low-freq active noise canceling). One really nice thing about my pair of Beats buds is the silicone cable jacket - it never kinks, twists or deforms despite constant handling and use.

So in general, Beats sucks - and like other Apple products they only sell because of foolish consumer fanboyism/ignorance, but they HAVE made one or two good-sounding products thus far. Edited June 20, 2015 by jsmcpn

offtopic, i like that HTC kept going with having two speakers on the front of their phones, if i wasn't wanting something water resistant i'd probably have one of their phones cause it's nice to have something like that whilst i'm walking around at work.

I got a pair of Monster cans free with my phone a few years ago, they were alright, but certainly not worth the £140 quid they would've cost retail. Their main plus point was comfort. My two cheaper Sennheisers (£40-50 & £70-80 I think) sound way better, currently mostly using Yamaha HPH-MT220 for around the same price as the Beats, sound infinitely better.

I bought a Sennheiser HD380 off of a headphone forum like new for 50 bucks shipped. infinitely better sound. the AKGs in the 200 dollar range amped properly gets one most of the way to the HD800, HE-6, etc. Beats are easily among the worst headphones I've ever heard.

 

I realize none of this is breaking news and Joyrex even said the article isn't a shock, but how much proof do people need that these are low quality? My guess is that no amount of research, measurements, etc. will break them moving units. I've noticed most people with Beats just *want Beats* and didn't get any farther with it.

 

again, maybe that's obvious too but someone took the time to create this article, why are we drawn to it? I'll spare you all the full analysis but really..