Monster Cable, the makers of cable, just sent the new Beats by Dr. Dre, a pair of noise cancelling “studio” headphones aimed at the mid-range audio consumer. At $349, these are priced at exactly the same point as the Bose QuietComfort 3, these headphones closest competitor. I’ve been wearing them for the past hour and found them on par with the QC3s in terms of noise reduction. They have very crisp tight bass and a nice separation as well.
Best of all the, the Beats use AAA batteries instead of the QC3’s battery pack, which means you’re not stuck if you forget to recharge. I’ll be taking a flight tomorrow and I’ll bring these along to test - I’m just about sold on the QC3s when it comes to noise reduction but I’m game to try these out in a real-world scenario.
The ear cups are quite nice and isolate the ear well and the styling is slightly younger and cooler than other massive headphones out there. Monster is entering a wireless age and they have to excel at stuff that doesn’t get electrons from point A to point B just to survive. In my brief testing, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on these.
eh. At $349 they are over priced, just like most other Monster products. I wonder if now that Monster has a product with “Dr.” in the name if they are going to start suing real doctors.
anything + monster = fail. Srsly, fuck Monster, even if the product IS good.
this will probably sell very well. sad indeed that such a blatantly target-marketed product will be bought by people that probably wont understand the benefit. as i understand it, the guy that started monster did so with the best intentions, its just the partenrship with apple that drives me mad!!! (they really push these things upon anyone buying an ipod, including my 61-year old father, who understood the rip-off, but was pestered and told he ‘wouldnt enjoy the full benefit of the ipod’ etc unless he had a monster interconnect. which is pretty cheap tactics imo.
one more thing, i think ‘tight’ bass would be a more commonly-recognised term, rather than ‘crisp’. crisp is onomatopoeic and usually refers to high frequency performance.
Interesting interpretation of crisp, but…. objection!!!
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-crisp.html
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/crisp
I wish you were right, though… if only because you use the word onomatopoeic.
Crisp: “lively; pithy; sparkling; brisk; sharp; clear”
Surely these words would also be used to describe higher-frequency characteristics? I don’t understand how these definitions of crisp prove my point wrong?
Obviously the majority of describing music/sound is subjective, we can make clear distinctions that are a matter of fact (e.g. the recording is too bass-heavy), or we can use more subjective descriptions (e.g. the mids are thick, the top-end is too brittle). I would say the most common words to describe bass are: boomy, boxy, tight, thick, heavy, rich, etc. And not to say that people aren’t allowed to use their own subjective words of course, it’s just to me it kind of tied in with the misinformed marketing strategy that I think people have experienced with this company.
Oh, I just meant regarding the etymology of the word (old english, not onomatopoeic) . You’re absolutely right on the word choice.
Ah I see, my mistake! Wasn’t so much meaning the origin as the use, but thanks for pointing that out!
So the crisp (English potato chip) really is superiorally-named then: “clean-cut, crinkled, wrinkled, firm curls”
early impression:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/4511971-post70.html
jude knows what hes talkin bout most of the time… seems like a confusion of marketing and audio signature.
(dr.dre+monster… balanced sound? $349? active noise cancelling? who exactly are they marketing this to?)
“dr.dre+monster… balanced sound? $349? active noise cancelling? who exactly are they marketing this to?”
Rappers.
Over the QC3s? I certainly hope so as those HPs are a more of a huge marketing scam. The Sen HD280s still rock that market and sell for half the price. *cough cough* You should add an audio writer to the staff.