Monster Beats by Dr. Dre Studio

[atomicAdam]

I try not to typically bash things - but I plugged a pair of these into the HiFiMan I have access to - pulled up Kind of Blue - lossless copy - and boy what a complete disappointment.

the bass was way too much - unfocused - the cymbals had no sparkle and a unnatural and short decay - the horns sounded fake and the image was all over the place. i can't really complain about the stage since it obviously won't be as big as the K701's - and some people don't like that. which is fair. but the bass - the stand up bass line on the 1st cut - was thick, slow, rotating between the left and right channel - i mean - it seemed out of time or out of faze - but it was in headphones... the piano was also blurry and slow - sounded flat - fake - there was way too much focus on the tape noise in the recording - way louder than any other system/heapdhone i've ever heard it on.

seriously - is this really what is passing for hifi? I let they guy listen to my K701s and then back to his Beats and he was like - yeah... 'now i feel sad' -

Please tell me these sound good somehow - because otherwise ..... maybe there is just something wrong with this pair - i'll have to listen again to another set when i get a chance. seems only fair since this set seemed to have so many things terribly wrong with them.

[JoeE SP9]

I've heard them. Your description is IMO very accurate. I wasn't impressed with some Skull Candy in ear's I heard either. They reminded me of a boomy car stereo.

[bobsticks]

They reminded me of a boomy car stereo.

Exactly...

...and are you really surprised? They're designed for people that have never heard music performed live.

[Robert-The-Rambler]

Exactly...

...and are you really surprised? They're designed for people that have never heard music performed live.

Ever since I got my Sennheiser HD 595s I have a real hard time listening to any other headphones like the Sennheiser HD 202. The bassy stuff just seems to lack detail and sound just god awful. If the Beats is anything like the HD 202s or others like the Creative Labs MKIIs then it is not for me. It is so strange once your ears get used to the 595. I swear very deep bass is there. I test often with videogame music remixes from overclocked remix. I think their site is ocr.org. There is such a detailed sound in the mids and highs and every now and then you can really hear the lower octaves blending so nicely with the rest of the stuff.

I'm often using a cheap Syba/Best Connectivity USB Sound Card DAC set at 16 bit 192khz for CD playback with 7.1 virtual much of the time amped with a Behringer AMP800 and it sounds alive. Is 16 bit 192hz a good deal for $25? I think so. Should I be upsampling my CDs that are ripped to wave files? I don't know but it sounds good....

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Connectivity-SD-AUD20040-Channel-USB-2-0/dp/B003L5D0Q2/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

[SlumpBuster]

Actually, these should be beaten down and even stickyied. Noobs should be aware. They have been heavily pirated and bootlegged. They are the new white van speakers. People will advertise them on sale on Craigslist for a steep discount and end up selling you a $2.00 pair of knock-offs for $50. I've read that the fake ones are virtually indistinguishable by appearance because the knock-offs are coming out of the same dies and molds in China. You can never be sure you are getting the real thing, even if you are buying retail. It's like when a few years ago, some employees here at the Louis Viutton store were caught selling knock offs right off the self as the real thing.

[harley .guy07]

Actually I have heard both brands because the university I go to sells both brands and they have booths where you can demo a pair and I hooked my laptop up to both pairs running flac files through fubar 2000 with the Wasapi upgrade so the sound coming from my laptop is better than most portable players out there not counting the HiFIMan those things are awesome but the Beats and Skull candy both did not have the sound that I thought they would with all the people I see with them. I have heard Grado's and higher end Sennheisers and I actually use a set of Sony Earbuds that for the price actually sound great and I liked any of these way better than the beats or Skull candy models I heard and I know that they were not rip off models because the college I attend are dealers for both brands. I understand why the right out of high school kids like them because they sound to me like a bass heavy car stereo and thats what they are used to, but I am 36 years old and have been around better audio systems my whole life and even managed a high end audio and home theater shop in the 90's so I have been around a lot of high end stuff and we sold some good headphones back then too. Don't get me wrong there are some good earbud and over ear type headphones that are reasonably priced if you know what you are looking for I think my Sony's where around 30 or 40 bucks and like I said they completely destroy the skull candy and beats for sound quality. I might just have to talk my friend in my home town next time I visit to let me borrow his Grado's and headphone amp and let some of these kids know what audio through headphones is supposed to sound like.

[hifi-freak]

Adam i make your words mine, the sq is awful + they are overpriced.

I was disappointed with them.

[BallinWithNash]

Turtle Beach for the win!!!! (Earforce X11)

[Dom]

I had some Skullcandy GI's and they weren't very good. My £10 Sony Studio Monitoring headphones are way better.

[NotreDameIrish]

I have skullcandy in ear headphones and I am not that impressed as well.

[Hyfi]

Exactly...

...and are you really surprised? They're designed for people that have never heard music performed live.

Don't you mean "ever heard music properly reproduced"? As far as Live, I think they closely match most of what todays bands sound like live.

What is cool is that they can take a well recorded pc of music and make it sound just like a crappy boom car that they are all used to.

I use Grado's SR-125 only.

[ericc22]

Thanks for all the above. I heard these when I was looking and was very unimpressed. I ended up with a pair of Shure's which I like much better.

[WalterS]

I;ve heard similar things about Monster. I;'ve been researching them a lot for the past few months. I've saved up a few hundred for a good pair of high-caliber headphones. I used the Bose QC15 for a while, but was also a bit let down by the SQ

[10538Overture]

Youre paying just for the name
i tried it and several other high end headphones and for sure dr dre wasnt the winner

[audio amateur]

I know for a fact that there are many knock offs, I myself purchased a pair of Sennheiser CX300 earbuds at a steep discount on Ebay. Turned out they sounded awful. I then aquired a real pair from amazon and there was no question that my first pair were knock offs and the second the real thing. You couldn't have distinguished them by simply looking at them...

[4wise]

Its more of fashion item nowadays and due to everyone wearing them they have grown into another one of those cult products that everyone sees as the best out there, when actually they are far from it. They do look cool though and this design factor will be one of the reasons of there success.

[bfalls]

I thought it revealing to see an abundance of DDre and Skulls on ebay and craig's list. I figured it was only a matter of time before I read something here about their sound quality.

I've had two pairs of the Sony Fontopia earbuds. The first my daughter bought me for father's day. I used them to listen to my ipod while cutting the grass. Unfortunately one day I pulled them off my head by accident and under the blades they went. I purchased replacements and still have them.

Last week I purchased a pair of Klipsch S2 for $17.00 on Newegg.com. They are a very nice sounding earbud. They're very good at letting the music through without compression. They're very airy and detailed. My wife loved them and wanted a pair, but when I went back they were out of stock. Now I can only find them for $30+ online which is the price for Klipsch' next best model, the S3.

Klipsch takes their headphones/earbuds very seriously. I heard enough about the DrDre's and Skulls I doubt I'd bother to listen. But I'm definitely going to check out the Klipsch S3s.

[macrosoft]

I hate the earphones that have either boosted low or emphasized high frequencies. I have to adjust my EQs to compensate the changes all the time. A good earphone should do its best to reproduce the original recordings and if I want, I could do the compensations by myself.

Just bought Xeport 7010 from their website for less than $20 and it sounds better than those overpriced brands.

[shermanator]

Definitely paying for the name, similar to Bose.

They do look "hip" though.

[MillionairL]

Meh, Bash on me if you will but i own Skullcandy Skullcrushers and they vibrate due to the bass... not to say this is a good thing however for the £20 I paid for them they look coolers than Beats and after giving a demo with some dubstep to a friend I think he was willing to trade, sure audiophiles and music junkies will willingly go out of their way to buy expensive headphones for the sound-quality and other people, like me, buy headphones due to price (and looks ;P) I don't/never really understood were the Beats were supposed to stand. The four P's in marketing (as it were) are: Product, Price, Place And promotion. So using this theory:

Product- Fail, There are better headphones out there for a cheaper price
Price- Fail, They are ridiculously over-priced in comparison to other brands
Place- ?, Doesn't really apply, people don't worry about postage costs when buying anymore and are just as willing to buy from a online source (which often offer free shipping)

So It can only be promotion? Hmm... Never seen a display or advert in which the words 'BY DOCTOR DRE' were not sprawled all over so i guess people buy them expecting industry quality when in fact they are just buying into propaganda (I read somewhere that Dre used to use sannheiser- forgive my spelling- headphones before making his own brand )

[JoeE SP9]

He probably still uses Sennheiser's.

[wrc65]

theyre laughing to the bank because of the fashion statement they now produce however most of the people who buy them are unaware of far superior speakers for way less cash

[mansueto]

My opinion of these headphones is that they are garbage... you are paying such a significant amount of money for basically the name. The sales associate at the store was trying to sell me these and I asked him what made them 'better' than all the other brands including Sennheiser, Denons, Bose, Sony, and Skullcandys, Pioneer he tried making up some nonsense about them. Needless to say I would never buy any Monster Beats by Dre headphones.... ever.

The audio itself had way too much bass and at times was very distorted. I tried a number of different genres of music with them and every time it was the same. They are like many of you have said just a fashion statement. It's kinda unfortunate how people are getting milked but at the same time it is their own fault. Before I make any purchase especially for audio equipment I always try and do research beforehand because even though I'm more than willing to pay more for quality, there is way too much crap out there now.