Does anyone own/have experience with these? I’ve had like 3 or more sets of headphones completely crap out on me this year. I live in an apartment building and am the CONSIDERATE neighbor that knows the other neighbors might not share my (shitty) taste in music, so I put in a lot of headphone time. Like 4-8 hours a day.
Are they exhorbatantly expensive because they’re super good, or because of the celebrity tie-in?
Open to other headphone suggestions as well if something has been working for you for a while. (Will also accept suggestions for those ones that hook over the ear - HATE earbuds though.)
I haven’t heard them, but I did some research about getting an HP laptop with “Beats” audio. I didn’t like what I found, in that the output and speakers were modified to produce sound that Dr. Dre prefers. I don’t know just what that is, but it appears to me that is boosts or lowers certain frequencies, which is what a graphic equalizer does.
Me, I want flat reproduction – which means I don’t want an automatic “reworking” of the sound. I want it to sound as close as possible to the sound that the music producers intended, to reproduce the frequencies faithfully and not to someone else’s taste.
I have a very nice set of Klipsch earbuds that I won’t bother describing, since that’s not a style you like.
And you can get them in Justin Bieber purple! LOLOL
I see they make headphones too - dear Og! Those cost even MORE! Interesting about the Dre’s reworking of the sound though. I wasn’t aware that was technologically possible.
Oh sure. A very common feature on boomboxes (remember them?) and lower end stereo receiver with buttons labeled rock, classical, vocal, or any number of things. These buttons boosted the bass, midrange, or treble parts of the music, If you know what a graphic equalizer is, the buttons were basically preset equalizer settings.
That is what I got from reading the HP pages about their computers with Beats audio – they were tune to correspond to Dr. Dre’s preferences. I want headphones that are tuned with an oscilloscope – so that a 500 hz input results in a 500 hz output, and 5000 in gets 5000 out. I prefer accurate reproduction. While I’m sure that Dr Dre’s tuning will sound better for some music, I’m also pretty sure it will sound worse for other music.
It’s a whole line of headphones, there are different versions including fullsize and in-ear. I haven’t heard them but I suspect they’re overpriced and you’re paying extra for the marketing. Once you get to the range of several hundred dollars, you should get headphones that are almost world-class.
He said the Studio version is good/decent, the Pro is not bad, and the Solo is atrociously bad. He said the Solo doesn’t even really exaggerate bass, it exaggerates low-midrange. “This is not a bass emphasis headphone, to my ears this is a murk emphasis headphone that sounds like being beaten to death inside a cardboard box.”
His favorites were the Soul by Ludacris SL150, the V-Moda Crossfade M-80 & V-80 True Blood, and the Skullcandy Mix Masters.
I don’t have much personal experience with closed headphones. I mainly use open-backed headphones that usually give better sound for the money, but provide no isolation. One common recommendation you hear for closed headphones are the Audio Technica ATH-M50 (curly cord) or ATH-M50S (straight cord). They run about $150 and sometimes less. They’re often recommended by audiophiles, but they’re also a professional headphone that is actually used in studios.
For ones that hook over the ear, a common recommendation is the Koss KSC-75 which only costs $15 but people say it competes with $50-100 phones. It is an open headphone though, with ZERO isolation from outside noises. And they have a reputation for cheap build quality. I actually ordered a pair to try out myself, but they haven’t arrived yet.
Here’s a review of a Beats Audio smart phone and companion earbuds that confirms pretty much everything I said – it’s basically like having an EQ preset which boosts certain frequencies over others.
Aside from ear buds, are 3 major types of headphones to consider:
I’ll tell you what Consumer Reports says are the best.
Noise cancelling headphones – These are the priciest by a fair amount
Sony MDR-NC500D - $400
Closed headphones – basically caps over your ears to muffle exterior sound
Audio-Technica ATH-WS70 Solid Bass - $120
Open Air headphones – don’t interfere with exterior sound
Grado SR80i -$100
I’ve never even heard of this brand, so I’ll toss in the next best with a name I know.
Yamaha HPH-200 $150.
FYI - there is another Grado higher on the list than the Yamaha – the SR60i for $80.
OH! I do know this. A boom box I bought recently (oh wait -huur. 15 years ago) had this.
I…oscilloscope?.. I’m just looking for something that will last more than two months.
What on EARTH?
Interesting. I think of Koss as being an inferior brand. (Like “Sorny”/“Coby” lol)
There is a lot of awesome input so far, (and THANK YOU!) but to be frank I have shitty taste in music. And though I like the Beatles, Deep purple, Moody Blues, The Smiths, ELO etc. whatever as much as the next guy? Mostly what I listen to now is horrible. I’ve been listening to an “One Direction” clip for like four hours now. Also, Kingsely and “Man Getting Hit in Crotch with Football.” (Simpson’s nod.)
Nobody “tunes speakers” with an oscilloscope. Speakers are passive devices so there’s nothing of value to be measured with a scope. I’ve done a fair bit of headphone/earbud testing, typically we measure them using a spectrum analyzer along with a Aachen head with occluded ear canal simulators.
second, any speaker that takes in one fundamental frequency and outputs another fundamental frequency breaks the laws of physics and is likely to make you a very wealthy man if you have one.
third, what sounds “flat” to you isn’t necessarily “flat” in terms of absolute frequency response. If it were, there would be no such thing as Fletcher-Munson curves. I can almost guarantee you that if I asked you to show me a set of earphones or speakers that you considered to be “flat,” you would be quite surprised at the non-flat frequency response.
My impression is that “Beats” has a lot in common with Bose – not bad products, but the price is more about marketing.
I prefer in-ears, so my on-ear experience is limited, but I own a ~$60 pair of closed-back Sennheisers that I quite like. Won’t win awards, but they’re comfy, sound solid, and look decent.
I’ve heard Koss PortaPros are a great, great value for the money. Koss isn’t an “off-brand,” they’re more like a company that’s refocused on a lower-end market, but the portapros have been made since the 80s for a reason.
Ok. Mum sent me a hefty Amazon giftcard for xmas so I went with the Audio-Technica ATH-M50 Professional Studio Monitor Headphones, which will surely be a thousand times more headphones than I’ll ever need, but one of the reasons I enjoy the over-ear headsets is to block out as much as possible of my neighbor’s music.* One who is a Mariachi “music” fan and the guy in the apartment next door who apparently only owns two CDs: The Best of Earth Wind and Fire (which I actually HAVE, but don’t care to hear it 5,000 times a day, especially at 3AM) and whatever Usher CD has “Yeah” on it. [Triangle: Ding, Ding…Ding Ding Ding Ding!] (Many of the reviews claimed they found these on eBay for around $60. I did not find that to be the case. Bah.) For the heck of it I tossed in the $15 Koss KSC75 Portable Stereophone Headphones. I’m crazy like that.
Yeah, I’ve tried (admittedly cheap*) noise-cancelling headphones but found when you run them in noise-cancelling mode they burned through a pair of batteries in a single day! Then they burned out, first one ear, then the other. Even with wiggling the wires around and what-not.
**Well, not actually. Think I paid around $40 for them
I got the small ones but not the larger ones (I have packages shipped to my husband’s house because I live in an apartment and would have to make a trip to the post office and the lines at mine are INSANE. I’ll swing by and pick them up Friday I reckon.) They’re good so far (not as comfortable as the ones that crapped out, but not as uncomfortable as my backup pair.) I made sure to keep the receipt and packaging just in case this time.
I’ve tested the full-sized Beats earphones in a store, as well as cheap Chinese knock-offs, and both were absolutely amazing, something which surprised me about the latter.
However I don’t want to carry round huge-ass ‘look at me’ earphones so I’ll stick with my Philips/O’Neill buds, which I heartily recommend (they provide great reproduction without creating a pressure seal in the ear, which I personally find very uncomfortable).
Nor would I; these are just for sitting at my desk when I’m on the computer to block out obnoxious neighbor. I don’t actually listen to anything on headphones in public because I think it’s dangerous. As a 5’1" female I like to be as attuned to my surroundings as possible and not make myself an easy target. (Yeah, paranoid. But better safe than sorry.)
