Over the past few weeks I’ve been using this killer pair of headphones named Beats by Dr Dre, made by Monster.
Actually I’m guessing most people might not have heard of the brand Monster before. I only knew recently that they’ve been known for building quality cables since 1978, highly respected in the hi-fi audiophile scene. They also work with Apple for their cablings in all of their Ipods. But personally, I knew of this brand around the late 90s thru using their cables for electric guitars/basses. With their cables, I could notice better clarity compared to the cables I was using previously.
So with clarity tagged onto my impression of Monster, I was very excited when I learnt that they were making headphones/in ears, with no less than Dr Dre, Jimmy Iovine(Interscope Geffen A&M Chairman) and Lady Gaga backing it up. At the launch at the Le Noir, and speaking with the Monster guys, I could feel the passion they put into the products.
So I got one of the Beats headphones and tried it out. After about a few hours messing around with it. I was sold! And immediately emailed the guys at Monster. And I don’t know why, but I actually said…Hey guys, the headphones are great! the bass moved my soul hahhah…
But with no pressure, requests or datelines from Monster, I didn’t wanna just write a review of this product after using it for a few minutes. So I have been living with it for the past month. Using it for a variety of uses, from just purely using it for enjoying music on my Iphone, to checking my mixes and masters, to recording, after all, it’s named the Studio Edition.
I’d like to remind all that I have totally no formal training not just in music, but in audio engineering as well. So I won’t know or say things like ‘Oh! The frequency bell curve sounds sweet at 245.64345 hz’ blah blah.
What I can say is, the headphones doesn’t fail my impression of Monster. My friends and I had a preconception that, ohhh…it’s Dr Dre endorsed, Hip Hop legendary producer, there’ll prob be much low end boosted.
But nope, the overall picture painted by this headphones is very well balanced and most importantly, comfortable for long listening periods. This is usually also what I look for when I choose my headphones. Coz it’s no use having super souped up hyped up exaggerated ‘prettier than life’ headphones/speakers when U can’t take it after an hour. . And also, the ‘hype’ presented in those systems are decided by the equipment designers, which might not be agreeable with the original music creators. Which is why I thought Dr Dre’s message that came with the headphones made total sense.
I also compared these headphones to another highly rated studio monitors, and I found Beats way more ‘chill’ than the other set. ‘Chill’ meaning that Beats presented the mix with full clarity without trying too hard. Highs are sweet, bass just nice. Listening to well produced albums was pure pleasure. Listening to badly done records was also a good laugh haha…Jim has a pair too and he also commented on the nice high frequency representation.
Recordingwise, I had a problem though, coz the audio leak from the cans is quite loud, so loud that U can actually hear even the lyrics of the song if U were standing next to the listener. So yeahhh, no grooving to LMFAO if your dad is around hahah…So when recording, the leak will go into your microphones, so not a good idea to use them for that purpose.
BUT for mixing, with it’s fairly neutral, unexaggerated character, I found them very useful for checking mixes. When mixing Serene’s 受保护, I passed the headphones to Darren(the mixing engineer) for him to check on his own mix. And he said Wahhh!!! Is my mix that good or it’s the headphones that’s good? Hahahah. I think it’ s a combination of both. Ever since then he’s also been checking his mixes at my studio with Beats too.
Right now I’m in Taipei mixing some tracks for Jaycee 房祖名’s album with Xiao Lin, 林正忠,
and I also used Beats to check the mix. Xiao Lin been mixing for 20 over years, taking care of mixing duties for everyone from Faye Wong to Yanzi 燕姿. He was also very impressed with the headphones, though he felt the high end is a bit more shiny than usual. But I like that character, especially when listening to DeadMau5.
Targetting the Iphoner and frequent flyer, Beats also comes with a outside noise reduction function, I had a great time listening to it on the flight from Singapore to Taipei.
It excited me enough that I wrote most of this post in the vehicle on the way from my airport to hotel! Hahah…
Yeah, so if U have the chance, check out Dr Dre Beats! It’s on sale at all good audio shops. Serene has the In Ear version, maybe U can ask her about how that sounds.
I’m sure the Lady Gaga series will be cool too…
Pros :
- Unexaggerated Audio Reproduction
- Comfy listening even with long periods
- Cool looks without being too BLING! right down to the headphone cable.
Cons :
- Prominent Sound Leakage (But then again, U might wanna be heard and just don’tt care 
)
- Cannot run without batteries
- Smudges easily (And then again, I don’t care )
In case U’d wanna know, these are the tracks/albums that I was using to run these Beats. I made sure I run thru different genres to test the versatility of Beats.
Deadmau5 ‘For Lack of a Better Name’
John Mayer ‘Battle Studies’
Flyleaf ‘Memento Mori’
Serene Koong 龔芝怡 ‘受保护’
Jaycee Chan 房祖名 ‘unreleased album 2010’
Cinematic Orchestra ‘Ma Fleur’
Timbaland ‘Presents Shock Value 2’
