[chinesekiwi]

Quote:

Monster makes headphones / IEMs intended to appeal to different markets.  The Beats line are intended to appeal to the younger, style conscious crowd who listen to a lot of rap, R&B, Electronica, etc.

and for the audiophiles among us who still like a 'fun sound' there's the Monster Turbine Pro range, which gets decent praise on the in-ear sub forum...
Criticism is fine, as long as it's justified.

 

[jchrist]

I chuckle whenever I see these cans on sale over at craigslist. There's more than a handful of these listed there atm, go figure. :]

 

[cowjuan]

ebay is filled with korean-fake versions of the "beats." it's funny how they go for <100. i kinda feel sorry for them.

 

[jamsie555]

Everyone on here seems to completely slate the Beats, Yes they are a rip off and the bass is muddy, but if kids are willing to waste money of headphones that will break after 3 months of use why not let them? They will hopefully then learn a valuable lesson and realise that Sennheiser are the best headphone manufacturer on earth, and start buying headphones from them instead of wannabe brands like monster, who claim that Dr Dre's Beats "let you listen to music the way artists do".  I haven't seen a single artist use Beats whilst recording.

 

[chinesekiwi]

Quote:

Everyone on here seems to completely slate the Beats, Yes they are a rip off and the bass is muddy, but if kids are willing to waste money of headphones that will break after 3 months of use why not let them? They will hopefully then learn a valuable lesson and realise that Sennheiser are the best headphone manufacturer on earth, and start buying headphones from them instead of wannabe brands like monster, who claim that Dr Dre's Beats "let you listen to music the way artists do".  I haven't seen a single artist use Beats whilst recording.

There's a few problems with this:
 
1) Yes, the Beats are a ripoff but really Monster do make some well regarded products that do have their Head-fi fans, such as the Monster Pro Copper. Always judge the product, never the brand it's associated with.
 
2) Highly debatable that Sennheiser are the best. No headphone manufacturer are 'the best'. Really, as with most companies in most industries, particularly consumer products,  different headphones from different manufacturers are 'the best' depending on the person's requirements. One reason why Sennheiser is highly regarded, although, yes, they do make some good products, not doubting that, but it's also due to recognition due to the marketing they've done and also other business practices like the flooding of the computer e-tailer market with their headphone range, thus in turn, a lot of computer hobbyists and gamers only really know Sennheiser as the only decent 'hi-fi brand'. Pure brand recognition. Sennheiser is far from the be all and end-all. As said before, always judge the product, never the brand it's associated with,. It applies both ways, with criticism and praise. e.g. tbh, the Sennheiser PC350 is really no more than a glorified overpriced VOIP headset.
 
3) Yes, the Beats should never be used in recording studios but however as desirably, you'd want headphones that you want to match the pinna of the ear for it to be truely neutral frequency response wise. Of course, tbh, common headphones used in the studio don't perfectly suit desirable recording and don't do this e.g. beyerdynamic DT770 (v-shaped frequency response), Sony V6 (recessed bass).
 
 

 

[jamsie555]

I just think that the beats are over priced and imo Sennheiser produce better products than Monster, as Sennheiser are a much more experienced company, due to the fact that Monster are relatively new to the headphone market

 

[Skarecrow77]

I happened to be at a best buy today, and I put these on my head. Aside from the fact that the left driver was completely blown, and the volume on the right drive was apparently doubled to compensate (What, ow), these had to be some of the worst sounding cans I've ever heard. Perhaps the recording was some 8 year old's science project with sonicforge, or a best buy employee had put a hammer through the EQ behind the stand, but it sounded to me like someone had pumped +10db to the 100hz to 250hz and 6000+hz ends of the EQ, and yanked the entire rest of the spectrum down to -10db. it had to be the most un-neutral pair of headphones I've listened to in a long time. I'm sure somebody appreciates that, but I ripped it off my head within seconds. 
 
Just for comparison's sake, my wife saw me do this and wanted to know what prompted that reaction. She put them on and lasted about as long as I did (a few seconds) before hastily removing them as well with the comment "oh god, that was horrible".
 
the worst part, they were listed for $399, and as I said to my wife "you could get a brand new pair of HD-650s for that! who the hell are these things supposed to be for?!"

 

[rhythmdevils]

I have not read this thread, but I think the title needs more TM signs.  So I'm going to add some here. 
 

™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™

 
Might as well throw in some of these too
 

®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®

 
And these
 

©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©

 

[wind016]

SO.... you judged a headphone's sound quality which had one blown driver and excessively loud volume? AND you thought it was bad...  =/  gg  

 
Quote:

I happened to be at a best buy today, and I put these on my head. Aside from the fact that the left driver was completely blown, and the volume on the right drive was apparently doubled to compensate (What, ow), these had to be some of the worst sounding cans I've ever heard. Perhaps the recording was some 8 year old's science project with sonicforge, or a best buy employee had put a hammer through the EQ behind the stand, but it sounded to me like someone had pumped +10db to the 100hz to 250hz and 6000+hz ends of the EQ, and yanked the entire rest of the spectrum down to -10db. it had to be the most un-neutral pair of headphones I've listened to in a long time. I'm sure somebody appreciates that, but I ripped it off my head within seconds. 
 
Just for comparison's sake, my wife saw me do this and wanted to know what prompted that reaction. She put them on and lasted about as long as I did (a few seconds) before hastily removing them as well with the comment "oh god, that was horrible".
 
the worst part, they were listed for $399, and as I said to my wife "you could get a brand new pair of HD-650s for that! who the hell are these things supposed to be for?!"

 

[Skarecrow77]

Quote:

SO.... you judged a headphone's sound quality which had one blown driver and excessively loud volume? AND you thought it was bad...  =/  gg  

 

That part was mostly to poke fun at a display designed to be selling these things to the public. It's like if you went to the ford dealership and the mustang on the showroom floor had two blown tires and the horn was stuck on.
 
Aside from that, yes, the audio quality was terrible, as I specified. I was familiar with the song enough to identify it, but the audio quality was so horrible that I wouldn't have known even what band (or hell, possibly even genre) it was if I wasn't familiar with the song. The excessive loose bass and ear piercing treble completely washed out anything and everything inbetween.
 
My wife described them as "It was actually painful to wear those. The sound quality hurt my ears. I didn't expect them to be so bad."
 
Perhaps these are the worst individual pair of Beats ever. Perhaps this pair represented the bottom 1% of units ever produced. If so, shouldn't somebody take them off the display?
 
And even more amazing that nobody thought to take those headphones off the demo display, is that people listen to those and somehow still purchase the product?
 
All I know is, I'd be asking the Ford salesman "Uh, are they all like this? And is this the kind of quality I can expect from your products?"

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

Quote:

SO.... you judged a headphone's sound quality which had one blown driver and excessively loud volume? AND you thought it was bad...  =/  gg  

 

That part was mostly to poke fun at a display designed to be selling these things to the public. It's like if you went to the ford dealership and the mustang on the showroom floor had two blown tires and the horn was stuck on.
 
Aside from that, yes, the audio quality was terrible, as I specified. I was familiar with the song enough to identify it, but the audio quality was so horrible that I wouldn't have known even what band (or hell, possibly even genre) it was if I wasn't familiar with the song. The excessive loose bass and ear piercing treble completely washed out anything and everything inbetween.
 
My wife described them as "It was actually painful to wear those. The sound quality hurt my ears. I didn't expect them to be so bad."
 
Perhaps these are the worst individual pair of Beats ever. Perhaps this pair represented the bottom 1% of units ever produced. If so, shouldn't somebody take them off the display?
 
And even more amazing that nobody thought to take those headphones off the demo display, is that people listen to those and somehow still purchase the product?
 
All I know is, I'd be asking the Ford salesman "Uh, are they all like this? And is this the kind of quality I can expect from your products?"

Yeah, imagine what the Ford car display would look like if it was at Best Buy.  Slashed tires, missing shift knobs and radio controls, dents and dings a plenty, fingerprint smudges and trim falling off.  Then some guy goes to turn on the ignition and it wont turn over.  Then posts about it on a car forum that Fords suck because he didn't know they disconnected the battery.

 

[Jimmyz]

The Beats Pro sound amazing, surprisingly (after burn in), the rest are ok. I would only buy the Pro model personally (although if you want an iPod speaker dock, the Beat Box actually sounds pretty good for 400 bucks, although I will stick with my B&W Zeppelin).

 

[wind016]

Would you say that it sounds like the Studio? Hows the soundstage and bass?
 
Quote:

The Beats Pro sound amazing, surprisingly (after burn in), the rest are ok. I would only buy the Pro model personally (although if you want an iPod speaker dock, the Beat Box actually sounds pretty good for 400 bucks, although I will stick with my B&W Zeppelin).

 

[jamsie555]

Quote:

The Beats Pro sound amazing, surprisingly (after burn in), the rest are ok. I would only buy the Pro model personally (although if you want an iPod speaker dock, the Beat Box actually sounds pretty good for 400 bucks, although I will stick with my B&W Zeppelin).

they don't need burning in as they're not dynamic driver headphones.

 

[buffalowings]

Quote:

Quote:

The Beats Pro sound amazing, surprisingly (after burn in), the rest are ok. I would only buy the Pro model personally (although if you want an iPod speaker dock, the Beat Box actually sounds pretty good for 400 bucks, although I will stick with my B&W Zeppelin).

they don't need burning in as they're not dynamic driver headphones.

actually, they are dynamic driver headphones, no product in the monster line uses balanced armatures, moving armatures, electrostatics etc etc