[vlenbo]

Has anyone ever asked the reason to any one beats fanboy (If they asked you first about your headphone of choice) why he/she bought the beats? Any good reason, did they do research to find the headphones, and would they ever buy an extra pair if they break?

 

[amateriat]

Having done a hitch in high-end audio sales from the mid-80s to the early 90s, I've seen my share of cynical marketing hype with so many categories of components, but headphones didn't get tapped for this silliness until perhaps the tail-end of the Walkman era and the intro of the second-generation iPod. Of course, it's been quite out of control ever since. Someone who "knew how much I was into music" bought me a pair of Skullcandy portable 'phones a few years back; I honestly appreciated the sentiment behind the gesture, of course, but...
 
My first, and only, experience with the Beats was by way of a client who bought a pair of Studios for her 13-year-old daughter as a Birthday present about a month ago. She said the Mute button seemed to be defective. I put them on and plugged them in: sure enough, the button worked only intermittently. I was also struck by how cheap and flimsy the button felt in operation. But, ye Dogs, the sound..."craptastic", as they say these days. And that was before she told me how much she paid for them...just as much as I paid for my Grado PS 325is 'phones months before. I instructed her to return the Beats ASAP, and made a shortlist of alternatives to buy (Shure 840s, a few Sennheiser models, et cetera). I also asked her to relay a message to her daughter from me: if she's at all concerned about "cool factor", just listen to how good her tunes sound on her new "alternative" phones and groove on that. She'll be cooler than she might imagine. (Knowing her as well as I do, I think she'll be hip to the message.)
 
I've lived through Monster's cable hype years back (M-1, anyone?), so I shouldn't be surprised by any of this, but the Beats phenomenon seems to be a new low for these guys. Even Bose doesn't reach that far down.

 

[gaspir324]

A friend of mine is visiting the States in near future and said he'd be getting "top notch headphones with very nice amplification" from the trip. I asked what he had in mind. "beats by dr dre". After stating some facts I convinced him to buy HD-650s!!! Then I asked about amplifier. "FiiO E9". Got him looking at likes of iBasso. I may now rest in peace.

 

[The Shining]

I didn't realize how out of control the beats craze is. I went to Best Buy yesterday to people watch. All that was left on the shelf was one lowly pair of "tour". Every single on and over ear Beat headphone was sold out.
 
I wanted to compare them to my new Denon phones. Half the display models were broken as always which should be a clue as to the quality. Each pair I tried did not come close to the D5000s. I wish I could hear the Detox as it and the Denon D5000 both sale for $500 on Amazon.

 

[paulybatz]

I read about 70 pages...WOW...cant believe the price tag and the hype either...IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE...

 

[LizardKing1]

Quote:

I've lived through Monster's cable hype years back (M-1, anyone?), so I shouldn't be surprised by any of this, but the Beats phenomenon seems to be a new low for these guys. Even Bose doesn't reach that far down.

No they don't, since the bass rolls off pretty early.
 
*complete silence*

 

[Byakushiki]

Quote:

No they don't, since the bass rolls off pretty early.
 
*complete silence*

*cough*
Even the K701 sub bass puts the Beats sub bass to shame.

 

[DarkAudit]

Quote:

A friend of mine is visiting the States in near future and said he'd be getting "top notch headphones with very nice amplification" from the trip. I asked what he had in mind. "beats by dr dre". After stating some facts I convinced him to buy HD-650s!!! Then I asked about amplifier. "FiiO E9". Got him looking at likes of iBasso. I may now rest in peace.

I don't know about iBasso. avast! keeps throwing up alerts for their site.

 

[CharliyuAndCo]

Quote:

I like the response of "I've been kind of obsessed with headphones lately, and I've been comparing and reviewing and testing them in detail for a while now. I've heard all the beats, but I've also heard of a lot of designs from other companies. Trust me when I say there are headphones for the same price as any Beats that perform 2-3x better sound quality. Some of them are even handmade in Germany/Ireland/etc.! You won't get that from any Beats/Bose either."
 
If your friends/acquaintances are the type that would say "HAHA LOL LOSER" to a well-formed intelligent reply then you either need new friends or different acquaintances. But don't just shake your head and walk away, that's even worse than anything. 

I ended up talking to him later that day. Showed him head fi forums and evidence of why beats and bose are not as good as other audiophile brands like sennheiser and audio technica. He still didn't believe me. He loves his noise cancelling Bose...

 

[CharliyuAndCo]

Sorry for double post
 
Quote:

 
Nevermind before on when I said I doubted Beats users would dare call out custom IEM users. I guess people are getting more and more ignorant as time goes on. I'll bet a few people will go as far to say Beats Pros would outdo...Let's say, LCD-2's in terms of sound quality at this point then.

Another classmate saw me with them and asked to try them. I told him that they were custom fit for my ear only, but he decided to plug it into his iphone and try to put them on anyway. I tried to explain that he had put them on upside down and in the wrong ears and that they would not create a good seal necessary for good sound quality, but he interrupted me and told me that they were overpriced, uncomfortable, and had no bass. He then laughed, told me to get Beats, and then left the room. Notice how he is a "classmate."
 
 I guess people are getting more and more {uninformed, stupid, ignorant, etc) as time goes on.  Or they just are slowly becoming mindless zombies hungry for the souls of the informed peoples.

 

[Astrozombie]

Spoiler: Warning%3A%20Spoiler!

 
 
Quote:

so no sophisticated high school students in your area? i feel bad for you man being left out because you are not ignorant
 

I'm starting to think these are not isolated incidents people, hate to be a negative nancy but i think this is just reality, this is the way most people are in America and probably the world. In the end there is no hope for any of us (just don't ever give that answer on a job interview survey)

.....isn't it funny i was also considered "gifted" back in the day. Isn't it interesting such a funny/smart person, George Carlin, was so pessimistic?

 
Quote:

Avoid becoming a drone, and you'll never be out of work.

Hopefully, but then again if you watch Michael Ruppert's movie "Collapse" you can come away with a lump in your throat  
 

 

 

[ac500]

 

Spoiler: Warning%3A%20Spoiler!

 
I can't speak for professions other than my own, but in my experience, skilled and hard-working engineers don't as much suffer from problems during the recession. High tech companies are hiring all throughout the recession -- you just need to be valuable enough to be one they want to hire. I've heard several times that there's actually a shortage of highly skilled computer/software engineers today, as surprising as that may seem.
 
And sadly, a college degree these days really does not ensure a good engineer/programmer. There are a very sadly large number of BS degree engineers who have no clue what they're doing, thanks to stupid borderline degree mill colleges that have no idea what proper science and engineering really is, let alone teach it.
 
As a result, college degrees have become almost nothing more than an insurance of lowest-common-denominator proficiency. The problem is, that's really stupid - unskilled engineering doesn't work. As a result, companies have (finally) learned that good engineers are worth 100 'meh' engineers, and one superb engineer is worth often over 10x good engineers. The fact that all major tech companies have extensive technical interview / proficiency testing processes illustrates how utterly useless college degrees are for what they were originally meant to be (certificate of education and highly skilled respectable proficiency).
 
I know this doesn't much help people who aren't in that field, but the reality/economy/etc is shifting, and like it or not, engineering/science positions are opening all over the place, while manual labor seems more and more "outsourced" either to China or to below minimum wage laborers.
 

 
 
 
> I'm starting to think these are not isolated incidents people, hate to be a negative nancy but i think this is just reality,
 
Well clearly at this point, there's something causing an uncanny number of these incidents.
 

 

[bowei006]

Quote:

A friend of mine is visiting the States in near future and said he'd be getting "top notch headphones with very nice amplification" from the trip. I asked what he had in mind. "beats by dr dre". After stating some facts I convinced him to buy HD-650s!!! Then I asked about amplifier. "FiiO E9". Got him looking at likes of iBasso. I may now rest in peace.

I was almost gonna go :? when you diverted him away from a fiio amp...until i realised.. you said E9...yeah. let's...go lug a brick around

 

[gaspir324]

Well he doesnt listen via headphones when he commutes so it (amp) just needs to be something that fits to his pockets.

 

[bowei006]

 
Quote:

Well he doesnt listen via headphones when he commutes so it (amp) just needs to be something that fits to his pockets.

an ibasso to give the 650's a more bass presense i see  
I';m going for an E17(when it comes out) paired up to my HFI 580's.