Been more than a year since anyone posted to this thread. During that time, Beats has replaced its original Studio over-ear, noise-cancelling headphone with a re-designed one that everyone who has compared them says are superior in audio quality, construction quality, and comfort.
I encountered my first Beats not as headphones, but as the top-end audio system for my prized red 2013 FIAT 500 Abarth Convertible, which I got in March, 2013 (first of its kind in Michigan). General agreement among FIAT owners was that Beats was better than the prior Bose system that was the upgrade from the stock Alpine that FIAT had been offering (Bose, while precise, was underpowered for the road noise and weak in bass).
Though their lineage in the FIAT is murky (they claim that Dr. Dre himself tuned the system for EACH FIAT model), I and most others love its sound.
That love got me into hip-hop music (I have an interest in doggerel anyway) and Beats headphones. This interest has been more recent than the notorious take-over of Beats from Monster, the horrible (according to Tyll Hertsons) Beats Solo headphones, and the not-so-great original Beats Studio headphones, so I have not encountered this bad past personally.
My first Beats headphones were the wired Studio 2013 version; for the hip-hop / rap music I have recently "found," they were better than my other headphones, which at the time were the Sennheiser HD 598 and Parrot Zik. In fact, I enjoyed them so well (for rap, Lady Gaga, and other such bass-intense music) that I took advantage of a buy-two-save-money special to also get the Beats Studio 2013 wireless version and the older Beats Pro (the Pro because it was neither noise cancelling nor wireless, and other reviews had scored its sound better than the new Beats 2013 Studio, with which I agree).
I have been comparing my various headphones in groups of three according to some rather systematic tests, and I have included the Beats among them.
I used four "macro" tests that used all of the music, plus six "event-based" tests that compared the rendering of various small pieces of music, compared by repeating back and forth between two headphones. I simply ranked the ability of each headphone first (3 points), second (2 points), or third (1 point) for each test. More detail, including identity of the three songs, in this post:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/704826/how-do-you-audition-compare-headphones#post_10254063 .
The macro tests were:
- Transparency;
- Size, both horizontal and vertical, of sound stage;
- Resolution of position of two persons singing near each other;
- Volume of headphone with iPod turned up all the way.
The event-based tests were:
- "Twang" of drumhead at entrance to Song 1;
- Preservation of features allowing me to determine pitch of bass notes in Song1 Verse 3)
- Finger pluck at start of bass notes at start of Song 2;
- Clarity of shaker, preserving differences of each shake, in Song 2 Verse 3;
- "Ripping" sound characteristic of horns and medium low reed organ pipes at start of Song 3;
- Ability to hear additional echoing chord stacked upon a huge bombast of sustained full orchestra and organ four beats later, in about third "verse" of Song 3.
Here is the result of my first comparison. A 3 indicates that headphone was the best of the three in that test and contributes 3 points to an eventual headphone score totaled at the end... a 1 means it was the worst.
| Test | Sennheiser HD 598 | Beats Studio 2013 | Beats Pro |
| Transparency | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Width of sound st | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Positional resolution | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| Volume | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Drum "twang" | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Bass pitch perception | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Bass finger pluck | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Shaker variation | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| "Ripping" of organ/brass | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Discern added chord | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| TOTAL | 27 | 16 | 17 |
I also compared the Beats Studio Wireless 2013 version to other wireless, active-noise-cancelling headphones that I had, using the same tests:
| Test | Parrot Zik | Beats Wireless | Sennheiser PXC 310 BT |
| Transparency | 1 | 2 | 3 (best) |
| Width of sound st | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| Positional resolution | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| Volume | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| Drum "twang" | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Bass pitch perception | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Bass finger pluck | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Shaker variation | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| "Ripping" of organ/brass | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Discern added chord | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| TOTAL | 19 | 24 | 17 |
Though it had the highest score for the audio tests, the Beats Wireless did have some sort of funny resonance in the mid-to-upper bass that really made certain notes of the plucked string bass boom in the second test song (I had noticed this same effect in both the Beats Studio 2013 wired and the NAD hp50 closed over-ear headphones in earlier tests as well). It has displaced my Parrot Ziks as best sounding wireless noise canceling headphones in my collection; however the Zik also has a number of fun features via its software app (room reverberation; width of sound source; equalization). The Sennheiser excelled in "accuracy" features relying on precise high frequency, such as transparency and the attack of the finger on the bass string.
None of these tests (conceived before I thought of why I liked Beats) contained the test that makes all of the Beats so special for me... the ability for hip-hop music bass to pick me up by the throat and shake me (rather than politely announce its presence as in other headphones). The two Beats Studios suffer a bit in the treble-related things that these tests are based on (e.g., transparency, speed, clarity of pitch, etc.), but the Beats Pro is acceptable in these areas WHILE providing that throat-grabbing bass.
Of course, my love for Beats didn't end there. I have also subscribed to the Beats Music monthly service, which gives you monthly access to nearly any music at better quality than most streaming music services (320 kb/sec VBR, which is actually a bit better even than the 256 kB/sec VBR of the iPod iTunes standard AAC encoding, which in comparative listening I cannot distinguish from full CD-quality recordings).
So I had to show my Beats Family Portrait... three Beats headphones next to the Beats subwoofer in my FIAT automobile and the iPad showing the Beats Music user screen!
Beats Family Portrait: Beats Audio automobile woofer, black Beats Studio 2013 headphones, red Beats Studio 2013 Wireless headphones, white Beats Pro headphones, and Beats Music streaming service running on iPad.
I would have the same feeling listening to hip-hop or other bass-dependent music on my Sennheiser or Grados as I would have listening to acoustic music (solo singer through orchestra) on Beats... like wearing my business suit to dig holes in my garden vs. wearing shorts and no shirt to church!
Oh, and for those folks who remain committed to stamping out Beats and restoring peace and order to the world, I have revealed an excellent plan for doing so in my post "Spank Those Celebrities Cans," here:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/709045/spank-those-celebrities-cans#post_10344094
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