41–50 of 79 posts
If the deal closes , any guess on what happens to Beats Music? Doesn't seem to be room for that and iTunes radio (and iTunes itself) as separate brands. I think it will based on, eg, the Dr Dre video where he's bragging about it -- makes me think the deal is already done.
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They aren't bad headphones, the thing is you can get equivalent quality spending ~$50-70.
> you can get equivalent quality spending ~$50-70 That's what he was asking for. I've frequently heard this and I believe it to be true but as a non-audiophile how do I identify a pair of $70 headphones that are as good as Beats' $200 ones.
With better headphones, you will hear more detail in the sound. Words which sounded mushed together in the Beats will be distinct in better headphones. The mids and highs will come through much more clearly. Music will just sound better.
Beats have decent bass, but they're hardly the only ones with good bass out there, and many which have good bass are also capable of sounding better in the rest of the frequencies as well.
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I was given a pair of Beats Studios almost two years ago, so maybe that makes it easier to say this but, speaking as a non-audiophile, they're... good? I read a lot about how terrible they are, but in my experience, they're comfortable, their noise cancellation is great at work, and I have never noticed degraded audio quality (once again, as a non-audiophile). Could someone point me to a defacto better pair of headph…
It's like this: Beats headphones are worth about $50, at the most. Noise-cancelling in an office, you barely need to pay anything, because "noise-cancellation" is achieved by the headphones picking up background noise with a small microphone and then playing a dampening noise in reaction to a sound wave. This is easy when the background noise is constant - that's why "white noise" in offices works so well. But if the…
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> They sell expensive products. They care about design. They represent a way of living. They're Apple in another market. Except they don't care about quality, which is one of Apple's strongest selling points.
Perception of quality is one of Apple's strongest selling points.
I use Apple products (except for a phone, which is a Nexus 4) and I nearly always feel that their products are of a higher quality, this might be because of materials (rarely plastic) or it might be because their UI seems much more refined than other offerings, I always feel with Apple that they have obsessed over the details. If quality is perceived (perception, past-tense) – is it not quality? Or am I missing something? Quality can come from an assembly line too.
Reading the audiophile boards, the trends seems to be that the Beats Studio is now roughly competitive to the venerable Audio Technica ATH M50 , widely considered to be one of the most popular entry-level audiophile quality over-ear headphones. The main difference is not audio quality (the M50 probably has an edge here) but rather comfort and ear fatigue, with the Beats just being more comfortable.
I love my M50s but admit they do lead to sweaty-ear.
Examples:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/683959/new-beats-studios-2013-vs-au... http://www.head-fi.org/products/beats-studio-over-ear-headph... http://www.head-fi.org/t/673273/new-2013-beats-studios http://www.head-fi.org/t/675031/new-redesigned-2013-beats-by...
The main legitimate complaint about Beats is not that they're one of the two best sounding headphones under $300. It's that the market will bear that much of a price difference when the ATH M50 is $150. But, people will pay a lot for a wide selection of colours and a bit more comfort. And price can be seen as a feature.
In short - Beats sells decent quality for its class, overpriced for what you get, but between comfort and colour selection, customers don't seem to mind. These guys will fit with Apple's philosophy well.
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I was given a pair of Beats Studios almost two years ago, so maybe that makes it easier to say this but, speaking as a non-audiophile, they're... good? I read a lot about how terrible they are, but in my experience, they're comfortable, their noise cancellation is great at work, and I have never noticed degraded audio quality (once again, as a non-audiophile). Could someone point me to a defacto better pair of headph…
Beyerdynamic DT660: http://www.amazon.com/beyerdynamic-DT-660-Premium-Headphones... (go for the 770 if you're in a quieter situation, as they're open-backed and you get a bit of a cleaner sound) Grado is almost always a stellar choice. http://www.amazon.com/Grado-Prestige-Series-SR125i-Headphone... Both cheaper than beats. Both much, much better.
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I don't even know beats, and the way you describe them, they sound pretty mediocre. Just because the amount of money being gambled is huge, that doesn't make it genius. Apple must know something about beats that nobody else does, otherwise there is no way it's genius.
Plenty of "mediocre" brands are great businesses. The thesis is that Beats has marketing expertise--can sell cheap things for high prices--in a market where apple lacks it. Apple must know something about beats that nobody else does, otherwise there is no way it's genius. Again, this is false. Its not about "know something" its about "do something". A market-expansion play into high-growth (new) demographic is all ab…
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I was given a pair of Beats Studios almost two years ago, so maybe that makes it easier to say this but, speaking as a non-audiophile, they're... good? I read a lot about how terrible they are, but in my experience, they're comfortable, their noise cancellation is great at work, and I have never noticed degraded audio quality (once again, as a non-audiophile). Could someone point me to a defacto better pair of headph…
You're not missing anything, don't worry. I was a former audiophile spending way too much money like everyone else at Head-fi.org Then I realized the collective delusion everyone was living in when I forced myself to double-blind test headphones and various audio formats. Audiophiles are a tiny minority and you can find all of them poo-pooing this deal on Twitter (a lot of them overlap with Apple's customers), but re…
What Beats has in its corner, that Spotify doesn't, is a favorable relationship with the music industry, particularly the artists themselves. I've never used Beats streaming service but I was aware of it because of musicians like Trent Reznor plugging for it before it even came to market. Apparently they make deals where the artists get paid substantially more than Spotify. Beats is in a unique position to get music…
Doesn't apple itself have a great relationship with the music industry and a huge foothold in the consumers mind? Apple seems more than capable to build their own streaming service if they wanted to
A streaming service where the artists can sell directly and pick up a larger percentage of the pie will quickly gather a large catalogue of new music.