Quote:
Originally Posted by stang /img/forum/go_quote.gif
....Bose, Beats, Monster etc are overhyped, overpriced garbage. You need some good closed, neutral cans. Heaps of headfiers will recommend a lot of headphones to you. Shure SRH840 will be good, that's a start.
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stang, have you actually heard the Beats Studio out of your own rig, or any decent rig? I really like the Beats Studio, and believe that most who'd say it's junk probably haven't heard it with their own music out of their own rigs.
The reason I responded to this topic is because I'm actually listening to the Beats Studio straight out of my iPhone 3GS now. (At the moment, I'm listening to The Phil Palonen Project, Phil Palonen being the father of Sennheiser's Eric Palonen, by the way--
TheDeliveryMan is Eric's username here. Brad Mehldau's on deck.)
The Beats Studio has the distinction of being one of the few $350 headphones available
widely for in-store demo listens--but the unfortunate distinction of usually having (in my experience) pretty poor sounding retail demo setups that don't come close to doing this headphone justice. It is, to my ears, one of the best sounding active noise cancelers out there (I haven't yet heard Bose's QC15). While it does have punchier-than-neutral bass, it is not the bass-bloated beast I've seen some paint it as here--I'm left to believe that most of those who've come away with that impression after hearing it didn't hear it in a good setup.
My opinions of the Beats Studio are still consistent with
my early impressions of it. In fact, since becoming an iPhone 3GS user, I appreciate the Beats Studio even more, as it sounds good right out of the iPhone, and comes with a microphone cable so I can use it as a headset, too. It also has really tiny plugs--on both sides of the lightweight cable--which makes for less strain on my iPhone's headphone jack than any of my other full-sized closed headphones. (The big mute button on the right earcup is also handy when one is out and about.) The Beats Studio also wears closer to the head than most full-sized closed headphones, so it looks less geeky when worn in public than, say, a SHURE SRH840 which is downright huge looking when worn. And, for those this matters to, the Beats Studio is, in my opinion, one of the best
looking headphones on the head--I'm not one to care too much about that, though, and wear the huge-on-the-head SRH840 out in public very regularly (and proudly
).
In my opinion, the Beats Studio
is, howevever, expensive for its level of sonic performance,
if you disregard the fact that it's an active noise canceler. However, priced as an active noise canceler--the good ones generally being quite expensive--the Beats Studio is actually very good, in my opinion.
I think the SHURE SRH840 is, sonically, the better headphone, and it's priced substantially lower. Because the SHURE keeps the sound
in the headphone better than the Beats Studio, it would also be more appropriate for pro audio use than the Beats (that is, the SRH840 leaks less sound). (The SHURE also has better passive noise canceling than the Beats Studio.) For pro audio use, it's also important to know that the Beats Studio is an active noise canceler, which, though nice sometimes, means that it has circuit self-noise (albeit lower than most other active noise cancelers I've used). (One should also keep in mind that the Beats Studio
only operates in active noise-canceling mode--there is no passive mode.)
If you want an active noise cancellation headphone, the Beats Studio is one of the best sounding ones currently available, to my ears. (The Beat Studio's leakage might prove a problem for some, however, as it did with the original poster above.)
Again, my opinions of the Beats Studio are still consistent with
my early impressions of it
