Beats by Dr. Dre Headphones from Monster

Very colored, hyped at the high and low end, and only begin to wake up with Hip-hop and Rap only. (Go figure, a headset created in collaboration with a rap producer.) The average joe will listen to them and might be impressed because of the qualities I described in them and then they will see Monster and Dr. Dre on the box and will scrounge every last penny to get a pair and go on thinking they are the best headphones on the market. "I paid $350 for these and they are by Monster, they must be undeniably good." Along the same exact lines that Bose does with their QC2s and the incessant hype commercials on TV.

I now have a much better understanding of exactly who these are marketed to and it is too bad that they screwed up such a great concept by being so cheap. Ideally they would have been more reasonably priced, designed and sound significantly better. They want to awaken the average joe to how moving good sound quality can be and develop an appreciation for fidelity in audio and with such an easily recognizable name they could get that exposure. I think we all get it but it is like trying to convince a vegan to eat an overcooked $3 steak. OK, so not that bad, they do have their moments when they sound nice but there must be some sort of on-the-fly adjusting DSP built into them because the SQ seems to vary even in the same song.

The packaging is quite smart because it is fairly well designed and clever which adds to the illusion of a "quality" product. Once you hold them in your hands you can tell they are cheaply made. The design of the actual headphones is nice but holding them in your hands alone instantly tells you that they should cost ~$100 at most.

Back to the sound, they are very forward and exhibit distortion in the strangest frequencies even at low levels, yet exaggerate others. (It is almost as if the frequency response curve is a roller coaster.) There is a lot of bass and every now and then it can sound nice but it seems you feel the drivers through the ear cups more than you hear the actual output. To briefly sum up the overall SQ, they sound synthetic.

Now, they aren't horrible and they will absolutely smoke stock earbuds and headphones that come with portable players but it is the people coming from lower end sound gear that Monster is hoping these will appeal to. …More

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These are some pretty decent headphones! The style, packaging, and casing is extremely well-made. They are also AMAZING with the bass. However, the highs, "mids", and lows aren't as good,but still pretty nice. Also, they are also way too overpriced. However, if you listen to bass-heavy genres such as rap, hip-hop, and possibly rock, then these are very nice. If you have $300 to blow, certainly get these. If you would have to work extremely hard to get these, probably don't. You could get cheaper headphones for half the price. (Also, look into Fakes if you want) …More

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