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Comment by seattle_spring | Hacker News Reader

> I'm not saying Beats are great, but they get picked on for reasons

The reasons are that anytime they're [rightfully] critisized in any way, a horde of obvious Beats purchasers comes and defends why it was reasonable for them to spend $350 on a pair of headphones with similar sound quality to a $50 pair from a different brand. They'll never admit they bought them for the name or the fashion appeal, they'll always claim that they "sound amazing," and pull up some irreverent review from Vice or similar saying that Beats are passable. If people just admitted that they don't give a shit about sound quality and want to look cool to their friends then I don't think it would have become such a meme.

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Those are some shallow and some honestly awful reasons to pick on one's choice of headphones and the people who buy them considering it's not your money being spent buying a pair of Beats headphones. It's theirs. They worked for it and earned it. I don't feel inclined to explain my financial decisions to random joes on the internet either.

And maybe they do sound great to that wearer. You don't know. What sounds good enough for them might not be great sound to you. That's perfectly fine. Maybe they did buy them for how they look. Why make that your business? Why do you even care that that's why someone bought the headphones? I go back to my earlier position: it's not your money being spent. It's theirs. Taking people to task for subjective things like this seems like a very strange thing to lord over people for IMO.

You sound like my friend who gives me hell because I bought an Audi instead of the BMW he recommended. He says “the BMW has much better cornering!” and I say “my car has great cornering!” and he sends me some data as if I care. I simply liked the car I bought better than the one he recommended.

I'd take an Audi over a BMW every day. That's just me though. (My last car was an Audi TTS Roadster.)

Technical people like to ignore branding to the point that it becomes ridiculous. I'm not calling you out, BTW, just using you as an example. Audi vs BMW... does it really matter? There are minor differences here and there, but really it's another place where you're paying for the brand. When it comes to performance/build quality/technology, a Toyota Camry is by and large the same as any luxury car you can buy. The difference is the brand name and the "feel" (which is hard to quantify, so much so that it kinda comes back to the value of the brand).

When I bought my first luxury car, I had friends recommending an Audi. Seemed like marginally better value for the money, a little better MPG, some marginally nicer interior features, etc. But in the end I went with the BMW because every time I look at the A4, all I see is a Jetta for twice the price. The fact that Audi is owned by VW and the cars are based off the same platform is a turn-off for me. It has nothing to do with the features or the performance or the "feel" of the car... it's just a brand image in my mind. A Lexus is an expensive Toyota. An Audi is an expensive VW. But a BMW is a BMW, they don't make anything else. My 3-Series isn't anything but a 3-Series.

I know that sounds ridiculous, but when it comes to premium products, it's not always easy to quantify why you like one over the other. A lot of the time it comes down to irrational things like adjacent brands or the way it makes you "feel". Everyone can discount that as much as they want and say JVC has better sound for half the price of Beats, but it doesn't change the fact that the people buying Beats don't care about the sound, they care about the intangible benefits that the brand gives them.

For what it's worth, the Camry (an excellent car) is front wheel drive and many luxury cars are rear or all wheel drive. This makes a difference in driving dynamics.

Fun thing is that rear wheel drive is cheaper, and harder to drive ... and yet you're right about the luxury versions using that.

Almost everybody agrees they're harder to drive, and that the drivetrain is much cheaper (because the driven wheels do not rotate, so the mechanics are incredibly simpler)

And you can say, that makes it less likely to break. Technically true, but this is not something that breaks often, nor can you reasonably expect it to break (essentially only under enough mechanical stress to be bending/breaking the axle (a thick all-metal pipe), and at that point I guarantee this won't be the worst problem you have). It's just not the weak point of any car, so it won't ever make the difference between a car that keeps driving and one that does not.

Which makes this weird, because you're paying a lot more for an objectively worse product, which causes more mistakes in driving and is therefore more dangerous, for some bragging rights. I'm probably a geek because this just seems incredibly stupid to me.

Sweet deal for the manufacturers though: charge a lot more for a much cheaper product that's also simpler to design.

I have yet to see an AWD Jetta with all the features same generation A4 has. But from the purely branding point of view BMW does have that advantage of not sharing their parts bin with "lesser" brands. If you look purely at the specs, it's a tougher choice, although BMWs might be somewhat faster for the money...

Not really a similar comparison at all. It'd be more like if you bought a Lexus ct200h, and your friend told you [rightfully so] that you spent an extra $25k to glue a Lexus logo onto a Prius.

The Beats meme is outdated and tired. Their newest models with the Apple wireless chips in them are actually quite good - they balance a lot of qualities consumers care about well. The sound is great (just check the reviews), and the wireless connectivity is the best in the market. They also integrate really well with the Apple ecosystem due to the A1 chip. They also look better than 99% of headphones out there and that matters to people.

If aesthetics, wireless performance, portability or integration aren’t import to you and the only thing you care about is raw sound quality, that’s fine. Beats probably won’t fit your requirements. But the vast majority of people want something that balances a lot of different qualities well and Beats does that today (maybe not so well in the past).

As for the price, what good active noise canceling headphone on the market isn’t at least $350?

FYI: I have the Sony WH1000XM2. I paid $400 for them. I tested all ANC headphones on the entire market before settling on the Sonys. Beats were not the worst by any means. They gripped my big head too tight and hurt so I couldn’t consider them. Other than that, the A1 chip was amazing for connectivity and the sound curve was great for hip hop. They were also much more pleasing aesthetically and more portable than the competition. Ultimately comfort was the #1 thing I was looking for and they didn’t check that box.

Similar to you, I'm shopping a pair of wireless headphones right now. I am considering Beats because of the reasons you stated, but also most sites have the latest Studio model at only $230. While the Sony model you mention (which is my number one choice right now tied with the H9i), are most places $350 ($450 for the H9i). Given I'm buying these mostly for convenience first and portability, and given they are wireless sound quality is not the most important attribute. I'm going to take the best, maybe even considered bad choice, for me and my uses.

Out of curiosity, is there a reason the Bose QC35 isn't in consideration? When I bought my Sonys that was the most obvious comparison.

Possibly, because Bose has been doing "Beats" thing since there were Beats. They sound pretty bad regardless of the price, and for the price they are atrocious.

If you listen to any music that is remotely bass-oriented, the Bose falls flat on it's face. It's unfortunate because I actually think it's the most comfortable and lightweight option in the market. The noise canceling is also some of the best I've ever experienced.

The sound though, just can't keep up with any of the competition. For some people this isn't an issue - so they love the headphones, as they should. For someone like me who listens to a lot of hip hop and electronic music, it's a complete dealbreaker.

The wireless ANC headphone market is in a weird place right now. All of the headphones do some things really well, but have major tradeoffs to make one way or another. It all comes down to which tradeoff you want to make and what part of the experience is most important to you depending on your use-case.

Like I said, I've tried nearly every option in the market. Maybe I should write a blog post around this since I've invested so much time into it already.

When turning off the NC they were noticeably lacking.

I see way more people criticize Beats on the internet than any "horde of obvious Beats purchasers" defending them. I think the criticism is just a meme at this point.

Pretty sure the opposite is usually true around places like Hacker News or Reddit. It’s easy to pick on Beats. Too easy.

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