On the spectrum of urban cool you’ve got Jay Z on the cool side and then me all the way over on the other side. The are marketed more toward the Jay Z crowd using cool hip-hop artists to promote them on Instagram and sponsoring concerts where they emphasize the powerful bass and sleek colorful looks. I’m certainly not the target audience so I shouldn’t like them right? Wrong, I love them.
Beats Studio headphones in red
I was in an airport terminal when I bought my original pair of Beats Studio headphones. I had broken a pair of headphones in my carry on bag and needed something for my long flight to Singapore. I remember being surprised to learn that the Beats had noise canceling technology built in and it worked very well. Almost as good as Bose which leads the pack in performance in that regard.
I thought my original Beats although plastic and a little bit shiny for my taste sounded great and looked good. They became my go to headphone for traveling and until the came out were what I would carry around with me in my bag. I used them at work, at home, pretty much everywhere.
Other than the cheap plastic material, my big beef with the original Beats Studio headphones were the on-off switch which I’d always forget about and leave in the “on” position. That and the non-rechargeable battery caused problems for me because I would take the Beats out of my bag and the battery would be killed from leaving them on during a previous listening session.
The new Beats Studio promise to fix this problem by incorporating a built in rechargeable battery and an automatic on-off switch activated by pulling out the headphone cable. That was enough for me to give them a try.
Buying the new Beats wasn’t so easy but I’ll save that story for another article and just leave you with this:
I received the new Beats Studio in the usual slick packaging and immediately noticed that they were smaller. The new Studio’s are lighter and more compact than the originals which is pretty amazing given that they added a built in rechargeable battery. They are still using the shiny plastic and still feel a bit on the cheap side compared to the Sony’s but they feel a little less so than the original Studio’s.
The rechargeable battery has a little indicator which you can view by pressing the power button. This is a great feature and I’m not longer faced with the dead battery problem that the Sony’s and original Beats suffer from. You charge the battery with an included micro-usb cable which works while you are also listening to them. I wish the headphones would allow you to listen to audio through the USB cable but unfortunately its only for power.
Beat’s rechargeable battery indicator
The sound quality is good very much like the original Beats Studio placing emphasis on making the bass pop. They are not reference monitors and you wouldn’t use them to mix audio since there is nothing neutral about them. I think they are better intended for listening to all sorts of music and they are great for watching movies and TV shows. They make a great pair of travel headphones and I think for the price they are a great value.
You can pick them up for $299 on the .
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