How Beats by Dre played you like a fool • Hacker News Board

Re: How Beats by Dre played you like a fool

#41

Post by golergka » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:22 PM UTC

robmccoll wrote: post #12

Sennheiser HD 280 Pros - best headphones for under US$100. Balanced sound, good isolation, responsive and clean, comfortable for long sessions. 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 m…

> 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.

Re: How Beats by Dre played you like a fool

#42

Post by dagw » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:23 PM UTC

robmccoll wrote: post #12

Sennheiser HD 280 Pros - best headphones for under US$100. Balanced sound, good isolation, responsive and clean, comfortable for long sessions. 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 m…

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.

Re: How Beats by Dre played you like a fool

#43

Post by MichaelApproved » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:24 PM UTC

creshal wrote: post #34

kaolinite wrote: post #21

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…

> certain types of music - music listened to by young people 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?

> I find this worrying, really. Are we so desperate to consume that we're willing to buy shit just for sake of buying?

There's no need to worry, this isn't a sign that society is going downhill. Buying Beats for something other than sound as the primary purpose is no different than buying something purely for fashion sake, which is a centuries old human practice.

This comment reminds me of how every generation finds the next generation's actions worrying.

edit: Grandpa Simpson nailed it: "I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV0wTtiJygY

Re: How Beats by Dre played you like a fool

#44

Post by pohl » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:24 PM UTC

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.

Re: How Beats by Dre played you like a fool

#45

Post by DanBC » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:25 PM UTC

robmccoll wrote: post #12

Sennheiser HD 280 Pros - best headphones for under US$100. Balanced sound, good isolation, responsive and clean, comfortable for long sessions. 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 m…

> I just don't understand purchasing headphones as a fashion statement.

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.

Re: How Beats by Dre played you like a fool

#46

Post by JohnBooty » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:26 PM UTC

robmccoll wrote: post #12

Sennheiser HD 280 Pros - best headphones for under US$100. Balanced sound, good isolation, responsive and clean, comfortable for long sessions. 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 m…

  > 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.

Re: How Beats by Dre played you like a fool

#47

Post by sjwright » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:27 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #32

robmccoll wrote: post #12

Sennheiser HD 280 Pros - best headphones for under US$100. Balanced sound, good isolation, responsive and clean, comfortable for long sessions. 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 m…

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 agree it's dumb, but the important thing to realise is that pretty much everyone is falling for it pretty much all the time.

It's hard to argue that this same motivation isn't driving sales of iPhones over Android and vice versa. Or Canon versus Nikon. Nike versus Adidas. Harvard versus Stanford. Obama versus (!Obama). Ford versus Toyota. We can rationalise many of these decisions, but so can the people who bought the other thing.

Re: How Beats by Dre played you like a fool

#48

Post by Brakenshire » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:29 PM UTC

kaolinite wrote: post #21

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…

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.

Re: How Beats by Dre played you like a fool

#49

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:30 PM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #3

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.

[deleted]

Re: How Beats by Dre played you like a fool

#50

Post by q7 » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:31 PM UTC

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.