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Beats Pro by Dr. Dre

Flint

Flint

Prodigal Son
Superstar
I have been recording my son's band since November and recently needed to re-record the bass part for one of the songs. The gang came over and one of them (all spoiled suburb brats) had received a pair of Beats Pro headphones for Christmas along with a new American Standard Fender Telecaster and over the top Egnater multi-tube guitar amp.

Well, I had been editing, mixing, and tweaking the recordings for over a month using several sets of headphones including my trusty AKG K701, my standard Shure e535 IEMs with foam tips, the Grado 225i, and a nice set of Sennheiser HD580s. I thought it would be nice to compare the Beats Pro (street price of $379) to my menagerie of cans I had intimate knowledge from analyzing the same 24bit recordings I made myself with good mics and mic-pres.

Well, I was shocked. SHOCKED!

I had low expectations based on my experience with lower end models from the Beats line, but these were surprisingly poor sounding.

They were loud, they had plenty of bass & sizzly treble, but they lacked all detail. In fact, there were fine aspects of the recordings I had been editing, like clearing up some of the saliva raspiness in the vocal part for several hours, which could not even be heard using the Beats. It was sad... really sad - and this poor kid was so proud of these new headphones.

I do NOT recommend the Beats Pro by Dr. Dre to anyone for any reason other than as a status symbol.
 
The daughter wanted Beats for Christmas and although I have never listened to any I was against them for only 2 reasons.

1. The price

2. They were made by Monster!

I ended up getting her some Skullcandy cans and she loves them. The Skullcandy's came in snazzy colors (purple&white) and have a gimmicky bass boost module that I knew would be a crowd pleaser for the daughter...plus they were $300 cheaper!
 
I always wondered this. I also would like to know how those Quincy Jones headphones fair. They are supposed to be based on the AKG 701 but with QJ's spin on them. Hopefully they sound better than they look (the green ones are uglier than shit).
 
I often recommend the QJ 701s to my friends. They have the same basic character i respect from the 701s with more bass for those who need it.

I can buy the Beat pro in China for about $40.
 
Ahhh damn, I wanted an iPhone, not some crappy Dr. Dre Beats.

Rope
 
I'm tempted to grant the same weight to Dre, or even QJ, -endorsed headphones as I do Emeril cookware...
 
Thanks for the review. I tend to shy away from products with a celebrity's name on it.
 
My boss bought a pair of the Beat Solo for his son and daughter for Christmas. He bought them in the Las Vegas Airport on our way home from our trip a couple of weeks ago.

He said "hey, look what I bought the kids" When I looked in the bag and started to read the box I saw Monster. I told him that he could have done much better for the price.

He said, all the kids are wearing these now, so it's not about the sound................

So Flint, it was all about status with his 2 spoiled brats!!
 
Wel,, I didn't get any Beats Pro's by Dr Dre and I just lost the entire response I had typed regarding these.

"FUCK MY LIFE!!!!!!!"
 
My son wanted a pair of Beats headphones for Christmas. He didn't get them. He has a perfectly fine set of Sony headphones which sound better. He doesn't carry headphones around with him when he goes places, so he wasn't looking for status. He just knows everyone his age either has them or wants them, so he wants them too.

This kid who got a pair is truly spoiled. He very consciously destroyed his Vox guitar amp right before a recording session in order to get his parents to buy him a completely over the top Egnater amp for any 16-year old. It has two amplifier sections, one when 6L6GC tubes and another with EL34 tubes, which he can switch between or mix in order to get the most perfect tone for his guitar. It also has 5 or 6 preamp tubes. It is a serious amp for a touring pro trying to get every possible tube amp sound from one amp via natural analog means. He then shows up, turns the pre-gain to max, the post gain down low, and maxes our all the tone controls. The resulting guitar sound resembles a Dremmel saw cutting through a bolt head more than his gods, Jimmy Hendricks or Jimmy Page or Eric Capton. What a waste of money!

Why any 16 year old 10th grader needs $5K worth of guitars, amps, pedals, and headphones is a mystery to me. It would help if he was a really good guitarist, but he is merely passable.
 
There is a blurb in my new Popular Mechanics about the Beats:

Now in two new colors! These reasonably attractive, decent sounding, and absurdly overpriced headphones are a marketing triumph - the tech world's Air Jordans.

:laughing:
 
I know a guy who knows what they cost to manufacture. They are to fun-times headphones what Bose is to noice-cancelling headphones.
 
It's funny... when I get on a plane and pull out my Shure IEMs, people are often shocked. I had one guy sitting next to me brag about his Bose Quiet Comfort headphones the entire flight because he simply could not believe I would not also use something as perfect as those. I just wanted to say, "If those headphones are so good, why aren't you using them to enjoy your movies and music rather than talking to me?" But I just nodded and said "there you go!" after every outrageous claim he made.

I get the impression the young kids these days are treating those Beats headphones the same way. It isn't about the product, sound, performance, quality or even the styling. It appears to be all about status. And these are clearly not very high quality (maybe they are reliable?).
 
That's absolutely what it is Flint. No one cares about substance any more. The only thing that matters is that people think you are cool and that are wearing the right jeans, shoes, shirts, handbags, I-Whatever, and now headphones.

It absolutely disgust me cuz my wife and kid fall right into it. Although I must say that while doing laundry I have noticed that some of my wife's expensive (to me) jeans, are very high quality. They are very heavy denim, seem to be well constructed, except for the blingy things that sometimes come off, and they really don't wrinkle even when she leaves them in the dryer until the next time I need to use it and have to finish everyone elses laundry before I can do mine.
 
Advertising hype strikes again. I won't say that all Monster monitors suck because I was given a pair of the Turbine Pro Copper IEMs and they did sound pretty good. They looked a bit tacky though. I can't comment on their reliability because I traded them after 20~30 hours of use for the Westone 3.
 
Towen7 said:
Thanks for the review. I tend to shy away from products with a celebrity's name on it.
Click to expand...

I think the underwear Michael Jordan endorses are very comfortable.
 
Flint said:
It isn't about the product, sound, performance, quality or even the styling. It appears to be all about status. And these are clearly not very high quality (maybe they are reliable?).
Click to expand...
I'm betting 98% of those Air Jordans that so many people pushed, shoved, trampled and pepper-sprayed to get, are resting on a pizza-box-strewn coffee table while the wearer is twiddling the controller to his X-box... :D
 
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