Hacker News Reader

Comment by criddell | Hacker News Reader

For a lot of people Beats sound good enough, they are affordable (but still expensive), and built fairly well. Clearly, it's subject but to lots of people they also look good. For just about anything worn on one's head, aesthetics and comfort will be the dominating factors.

When I was a kid, my friends and I would kill time in the library by flipping through Car & Driver, Motor Trend, and Road & Track magazines trying to figure out what car is best. The Camaro might be two tenths faster in the quarter mile than the Mustang, so clearly anybody that buys a Mustang is an idiot, right? This is what a lot of headphone evaluations sound like to me.

View on HN

beats are built REALLY badly, look at any of the teardowns. They also use garbage no-name drivers that are identical to what you get in $20 headphones, again look at the teardowns.

Correct, they are a fashion item. The point is to be seen wearing them, not to sit alone in your silent apartment with a nice headphone amp and concentrate on your music.

Do Oakleys block the sun better than $5 checkout counter sunglasses?

> Do Oakleys block the sun better than $5 checkout counter sunglasses?

Not all sunglasses, especially cheap sunglasses, block 100% of the UV spectrum. If sunglasses are just tinted but don't block UV light they're actually worse because the tint causes your pupil to dilate more than it otherwise would, allowing in more UV.

You won't find a pair of brand-name sunglasses like Oakleys or Ray Bans that don't block 100% of the UV spectrum.

That said, the lens quality between cheap and expensive sunglasses is significant. Clarity and contrast are improved with good lenses. They're noticeably worse with cheap ones.

Say the tint of your glasses reduces outdoor light levels to what would be comparable indoors. You'll see worse outside with your cheap sunglasses than you would indoors without. Cheap lenses distort. A good lens doesn't, and make things look sharper and better defined by increasing contrast, optimizing for desirable light wavelengths (e.g. yellow lenses when skiing in flat light), polarization to cut glare, etc.

Added bonus, sports-oriented glasses like Oakleys are shatter-proof. This is a significant consideration for me, as I participate in many outdoor sports where eye protection is mandatory.

Bottom line, price does make a significant difference in sunglasses.

I've been happy wearing safety glasses with tint. Unlike fashion glasses, safety glasses must adhere to ANSI z87.1 standards that test things like impact and UV protection.

Safety Works (used to be MSA) on Amazon are my go-to.

http://blog.safetyglassesusa.com/what-does-ansi-z87-1-2010-c...

At this point, I only buy my sunglasses from the fishing aisle in the sporting goods section of Walmart. The Ugly Stik pair I got most recently is the best pair of sunglasses I've ever owned, and only cost about $10 (must have been on sale) - they are polarized and block glare great, are comfortable, and cover enough to work as safety glasses in a pinch.

http://www.uglystik.com/uglystik-apparel-eyewear/ugly-stik-s...

All the brands you mentioned are owned by the same company, luxotica. Even some knock off brands (piranha and the like) are owned and manufactured by them.

I get your point, but sometimes those cheap sunglasses have poor UV protection which could end up being WORSE for your eyes than no sunglasses, since your eyes dilate when it gets darker, letting in more UV.

But yeah, after that, probably not :)

Oakleys are more scratch-resistant and comfortable than the checkout counter sunglasses. It's probably cheaper to just buy 15 pairs of the checkout counter sunglasses if you only care about durability.

I have a pair of Oakleys (Juliets I think) that are about 15 years old and must be on the fifth pair of lenses. Been hit directly by a dinghy boom more than once and survived fine.

Headphones on the other hand - I go through maybe 3 or 4 pairs a year so buy fairly cheap ones because I know they are going to be destroyed or lost.

As a counter to this my $400 Sennheiser HD650s feel like plastic crap I could snap in half while the beats headphones are metal and feel solid.

The HD650s sound nice - but I think they feel pretty cheap.

I have ATH-M50 headphones. They sound pretty good, but they are all plastic, not terribly comfortable, and are ugly. They do the job though and were very inexpensive.

My $400 Sennheiser Momentum 2s are metal and feel decidedly "not crap". They also look much more tasteful than the welcome-our-robot-future Beats.

They are built good enough. My whole point is that Beats will never make an audiophile happy, but normal people love them because they sound good (enough), look good, and are comfortable. Plus you can get them for a few hundred dollars - an amount that most people can come up with.

It's not that different than watches. Some people will spend thousands of dollars on a mechanical watch with fewer features and less accuracy than a cheap watch you can buy at a gas station. But the mechanical watch works well enough and it looks nice.

My whole point is that Beats will never make an audiophile happy

Actually...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcpIba9SSjE

And this is the same guy that did this...

https://youtu.be/ipZY0qGrA9Y?t=60

There's plenty of categories of products where the difference between high and low quality is nebulous, wine being maybe the most famous example. But beats is not one of them.

Holding them up to another $200 pair of headphones and listening to them side by side makes the difference obvious. The case molding is poor quality, lacks removable fasteners that make most expensive headphones repairable, and the leather isn't as soft. They don't get as loud as headphones with nice drivers. These things are obvious to anyone that tries them out.

The only thing Beats has going is the branding image of Dr Dre and now Apple. They're trendy and its the only reason they sell, besides that they're crap in almost every way.

Things might be better now that Apple owns the brand, as I haven't held a pair in a while.

> listening to them side by side makes the difference obvious

No, it doesn't. First, a lot of people like the Beats audio profile. Second, people aren't using them in a quiet space with a good amp and high quality sources. They are streaming Pandora on a noisy bus with the volume kind of low so they can still hear the announcements.

Those removable fasteners that make the headphones repairable, also make them uglier. That's not a trade-off many people will accept, especially on a consumer good that people expect to be disposable anyway.

> The only thing Beats has going is the branding image of Dr Dre and now Apple.

That's a big part of it. I would wager that professional athletes wearing them is a bigger factor, but that's just a guess. Social signaling is a big part of anything you wear and I don't think there's anything special about headphones in that regard. People are buying shoes because they like how they look, why would you expect anything different for headphones? Since they frame your face, I would expect aesthetics to be the number one factor for headphone choice.

>> listening to them side by side makes the difference obvious

>No, it doesn't. First, a lot of people like the Beats audio profile.

I'm no audio expert, but I believe I have a good ear and I use decent gear. I would argue that (most, maybe not all) Beats headphones are objectively worse. I don't mean worse in that people who only listen to pop and R&B are going to like them less, but rather worse at reproducing audio.

I think the way you objectively measure something that reproduces sound is by how accurate that reproduction is. Sure, some listeners are going hear the bloated bass and treble and think it sounds better than a quality pair of headphones. But bloated bass makes some music sound horrible. It works for pop, rap, etc... because there isn't much going on musically. I mostly listen to progressive metal, and it just sounds like shit on Beats headphones. The bloated bass makes everything sound muddy, the treble is way to harsh, and the mid-range is drowned out. Guitars live in the mids.

AudioTechnica M50s have a little extra bass and treble, but metal still sounds great on them. The instruments sound clear and separated. It's punchy. I know what people like is subjective, but I would consider the Beats (again, maybe not all beats) I have listened to objectively bad at reproducing music.

Beats might be objectively worse than other headphones, but for a lot of people, they are still good enough. Your standards are clearly pretty high. Certainly higher than mine. I think you prioritize audio fidelity over aesthetics and that makes you different than most headphone buyers.

To use a car analogy: a Ferrari might be an amazing sports car, but I would still probably prefer a Mustang because it has better cup holders. The performance characteristics past a certain level just aren't all that important. Where that level is, varies.

BTW - I also use AudioTechnica M50 headphones daily. My kid has Beats Solo 2 (or is it 3) headphones. The Beats sound better, are more comfortable (the M50's are hot), and aren't as ugly. If my M50's broke today, I would probably pick up some Solos.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com