WARNING: This is just a disclaimer that this review may or may not agree with your current fanboy-ism. Please do not take it personally. From hours and hours of testing, in conjunction with previous time with other headphones, I have compiled a pretty good overview of the Beats By Dre. Once again, don’t hate me because I have an opinion.
Now that we that out of the way, I shall tackle this behemoth of a review. It’s always difficult to review headphones because there’s so much out there and there so many different kinds of people. What do I mean by that last part? Well, everyone hears differently. Some people may have a wider range in which they can hear than others. Scienctifics aside, the Beats By Dre Studio headphones are great headphones. That’s not to say it doesn’t have it shortcomings. I’ll tackle the cons first.
The cable is only about 4 feet in length. So for all you ballers out there, you may to purchase a longer auxillary cable to get functionality out of these headphones. Also, the passive noise cancellation isn’t up to par with the price tag. How can you tell? Well, when you play your music loud, it REALLY leaks out, which can be awkward in many situations. Since a lot of sound leaks out, one can assume that sound can leak in quite easily, and thus the PASSIVE noise cancellation is mediocre.
Furthermore, when you activate the noise cancellation there is a VERY faint hiss that can be heard (which virtually dissappears from your senses when you begin to play musics). Lastly, these headphones can NOT be used without two AAA batteries. When you buy these headphones, buy rechargeable batteries. Sadly, that’s a must!
All that being said, these are amazing headphones. They provide MUCH better bass than many of it’s competitors (Bose QC2 and OC3’s) and have highs that are even comparable to those flashy Sennheisers. The mids can get a LITTLE muddy at times, but this is often due to poor file quality.
There is a iPhone attachement that is way to high up on the wire to be an ‘awesome’ idea, but the sensitivity of the button itself makes is a ‘good’ idea. It’s included in the package, but could have used a little more thought. That being said, the sound quality on the receiving end of the mic is pretty good.
Right over the power switch, the ‘b’ logo is a mute button that can be held to turn off the audio and noise cancellation momentarily. I wish that you didn’t have to HOLD it there in order to mute.
Aesthetically, you cannot argue that these headphones are SEXY! The piano black finish is very slick. The hot red highlights are sick. And the overall design brings all these together to give a set of headphones that look like no other. All in all, these headphones are great. They come with a beautiful package and all the necessary accesories. The $400 price tage ($350 in the US) may be steep to many consumers, but mind you, the cost price is about $215 CDN. In other words: SHOP AROUND!
