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Are Beats by Dre headphones any good?

Thomas Brolin -

Dear Lifehacker, I’m in the market for a new pair of headphones, and  I’ve been eyeballing the Beats By Dre Studios.

I like a lot of bass in  my music, but some people tell me they suck and are overpriced.

Are they  actually horrible, or are these people just snobby audiophiles who like  to hate on popular headphones? Will I notice a difference?

People have been asking us this question for years, so let’s settle this once and for all.

As  snobby as (some) audiophiles may seem, they’re right on this one: Beats  are... not great. Not only are they not worth their price, there are a  lot of headphones that will give you better sound—with lots of bass—for less.

Here’s the issue surrounding these fashionable cans, and what we recommend looking at instead.

The problem with Beats

I tried Beats years ago, before my foray into high-end headphones, and I  thought they sounded awesome.

Since then, I’ve tried numerous other  headphones, but never really hated on Beats. I assumed that people hated  Beats just because it was fashionable to do so.

I figured they were  decent enough quality, but overpriced due to the brand name. However, I  recently tried a pair of Beats Studios again, and was shocked to find  that I was wrong: they really aren’t very good at all.

Many audiophiles would have you believe Beats are bad because have too much bass. I disagree. It’s that they have too much low quality bass, with even worse mids and treble.

If you want to hear what Beats sound like, pull up your equalizer and ram the midbass frequencies up. Hear that loud, boomy, awful noise? That’s what Beats sound like.

There’s not nearly enough definition to make the bass sound good, and it drowns out nearly everything else in the music—which is probably okay, because the treble and mids sound like they’re coming from inside a well.

Bass-heavy alternatives to beats

So what should you buy instead? If you search around the internet, you’ll find a lot of articles recommending a bunch of random high-end headphones,  but we know that’s not what you want.

You’re looking for something  specific: bass, and lots of it. You probably listen to a lot of hip hop  or electronic music, and bass-heavy cans are going to make it sound  awesome.

Some of these headphones may be good for rock and pop, too, but  those genres usually excel with a more balanced headphone.

These are far from the only bassy headphones out there, but if you’re  considering Beats, these are some of the most oft-recommended  replacements at a few different price points.

I highly recommend you  listen to a few before you run off and buy one (as my impressions and  tastes will differ from yours), and you should also check out this giant thread at Head-Fi which has a ton of information on bass-heavy cans.