How Beats Tricks You into Thinking It Makes a Premium Product | Hacker News Reader

How Beats Tricks You into Thinking It Makes a Premium Product

gizmodo.com

41 pointsvelodrome69 comments

SUMMARY: The $200 Beats Solo contain about $16.89 in parts including cheap ($1.80) off the shelf speaker drivers found in $19 headphones on Amazon. They use metal weights for about 1/3 of the weight to make them feel "premium" and cut every corner in construction to save money (glue instead of screws, etc).

Full teardown: https://medium.com/@BoltVC/how-it-s-made-series-beats-by-dre...

There are a lot of much better options than Beats out there in terms of both style and/or sound quality.

The brilliant thing here is that the two large metal parts are not mirror images of each other- they are actually the same part!

Not surprising - headphones are very symmetrical.

I think they overestimated the cost a bit - you can get fake look-alikes for around $12, and I bet they sound exactly the same, because they're being made by the same factories. The "deep bass" sound was around in various generic Chinese headphones long before Beats popularised them, because of the common perception that more bass means "better" (stronger) sound:

http://www.dealsmachine.com/best_167908.html

http://www.gearbest.com/headsets/pp_56709.html

The whole fluff about custom-designed sound and so forth is all marketing. Beats sounds like cheap headphones because... they are.

Usage of metal weights on its own doesn't really say anything about the quality. As an example: Computer mice have used weights for ages, just because those are awkward to use when they are too light.

And no, I'm not a fan of this brand of headphones either, and yes, they are probably way overpriced.

You don't balance mice on your head. (Or maybe you do, I'm not going to judge.) Adding the weight improves the experience of using the mouse. How does adding weight to headphones improve the experience? I'd say it has the opposite effect because heavier headphones would be less comfortable. Generally, a better speaker will have a larger magnet than a cheaper one. So that may be what the extra weight is meant to compensate for. In that case it's pure deception.

can you suggest what are the brands that spend more on quality and less on marketing? i think those brands should be supported so their already minimal reliance on marketing is further reduced.

Just about every brand is better than Beats in terms of price for performance. On the more budget end for half the $200 Beats Solo price or a lot less, here are a few options:

Grado is a great choice that's more about sound quality. SR60 and SR80 range is a great bet at around $79 and $99 respectively. And you can swap out the pads for either on or around ear fit (flat, L and G cushions are interchangeable).

If you want something like the look of Beats Solo, grab a pair of Jabra Revos. The wired ones can be had for as little as $42 online. Foldable, removable wire, plugs on both sides to swap or share music, much better build quality (check the vidoes), mic/remote, white or black, and better sound. They make a bluetooth version as well.

If you like color and good sound and a retro look, the Sennheiser Momentum On Ear (original/1.0) are a nice option starting at around $70.

If you just want something inexpensive that looks a bit like beats and has a similar color selection, check out the UrbanEars Plattan. They start at $40 on Amazon and have a full set of colors. I'm not sure what the sound quality is, though.

And don't forget about the classic Sony MDR7506 ($85) and Audio Technica ATH series (starting at $60). There's a reason so many industry folks swear by them for studio and field work. Basic, black, stand up to abuse, sound good.

Realistically, I suggest trying out various models in person. You're looking for a comfortable fit for however long you'd prefer to wear. And the right sound for you (a neutral sound vs heavier bass for instance). And the right style. And deciding if you prefer on-ear or over ear (some folks prefer the feel of one vs the other) as well as open or closed cups (open lets in outside noise as well as air). Or you could go the in ear route from basic earbuds all the way up to $1000+ custom-fit professional in-ear monitors.

I think you should probably suggest some at Beat's price range too. Since people are clearly willing to spend $300.

I'd recommend Bose QC25s. They probably have the best noise canceling in the market too, and they have amazing return policies and exchange policies (they'll let you exchange 10 year old headphones for 50% credit to the latest model).

I'm very happy with my Beyerdynamic DT770 which I own for many years, closed design, go around the ears. The furry padding is very soft, the faux-leather padding will isolate better. Many parts are exchangeable, built like a tank. Cost around $150.

DT770 are available with different impedances and 250Ω will be too high for low-voltage outputs, I often have to run my Phone / Laptop almost on "full volume" to compensate, so better buy the 32Ω version.

(In no particular order)

- HiFiMan - Grado - Sennheiser - Beyerdynamics - AKG - Philips - Marshall - Audio-Technica - Brainwavz

There are many other/niche brands as well. There are several great audiophile magazines that can help sort through the options.

Most brands have headphones that will do fine without, but some of the higher end options may need a DAC to power the headphones (e.g. the DragonFly USB DAC by Audioquest), so be mindful of that.

I'd skip the audiophile magazines, unless you want to spend hundreds extra for marginal returns. A website called The Wirecutter has fantastic recommendations in all categories of headphones:

http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/headphones/

Also, it would be a crime against bargain hunters everywhere if I didn't mention that for around $99, a set of Sony MDR-7506 headphones will crush anything Beats sells.

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-150-over-ear-headp...

While the sound from the MDR-7506 is fantastic, and very comfortable, that thin lining around the ear muffs wears off within the first year of use and you get little itty bitty black pieces of it on your ears when you wear it.

I now have a Beyerdynamics DT77 PRO set that is fantastic and even more comfortable.

Not to poo poo your choice of headphones (they look great), but replacement pads are $15 if you go OEM; less if buy knock-offs.

♥️ the wire cutter

I personally like Beyerdynamic headphones. They're quite common in studio settings.

Sennheiser has some great stuff as well.

AKG studio range (consumer range is just ok) and audiotechnica both have very high quality options at several price points.

Best way to tell AKG studio range is (generally) the cable is detatchable. If the cable is not removable, it's probably the consumer range.

I'd second Grado if you like open-air style cans. They have a fun retro look and on top of that the pads are easily replaceable. Also, Audio-Technica make really good headphones for the money.

If you look for something with a very high price-to-performance ratio I recommend V-Moda.

Superlux also sound great and are under $50.

Interesting, never heard of them. According to [1] you need an amp to drive them though - is that incorrect? In which case they aren't quite equivalent to V-Modas that you can just attach to your whatever-mobile-device, are they?

[1] http://www.head-fi.org/t/485039/superlux-hd668b-are-they-rea...

They have very low impedance, so you can use them without an amp. Hope you see this in time. OTOH I really recommend you buy the AKG velour pads instead of using the stock ones.

Grado.

Bose.

Bose seems top of the line only in their Noise canceling.

When a 350-word article gets 'summarised', it makes me loathe Twitter even more.

The linked article is a kind of worthless summary. The longer version is the one I summarized. I think I included more interesting bits.

This article is already a summary of a longer medium article…

The article and tear down make no attempt to demonstrate that Beats design choices lead to worse sound.

And neither identify other options, whether cheaper or better.

They mention the fact that Beats uses generic $1.80 off the shelf speakers within despite claiming things like "Fine-tuned acoustics for clarity, breadth and balance".

They mentioned the commodity $19 speakers inside.

The speakers are generic off the shelf $1.80 drivers found in cheap headphones.

Well yes, but those could, potentially, be made to sound great if put into a housing that has been very carefully designed and produced.

And also: Do you really think the drivers used in a Sennheiser HD 630VB (I just randomly picked this model from a reputable vendor) couldn't be produced for $10 in mass quantities when aiming for a 1'000'000 piece production run?

I think the problem of the article is that it's focusing on "look, how cheaply this has been produced", when instead it should focus on "look, how bad it sounds, how easy it breaks and how uncomfortably it sits on a head".

High margins. No wonder Apple bought them.

I think what a lot of the posts on this thread are missing is that Beats is not really a headphone company, it's a jewelry company. And jewelry doesn't need to be made of anything special, it just needs to be rare [0]. The prohibitive cost of Beats is its selling point.

Nick Szabo's essay on money Shelling Out - The Origins of Money [1] points out how Wampum in its various forms was worn to signify wealth. Ornamental swords and axes with no utility were flashed around as well.

This is nothing new - what's interesting is that we're beginning to see consumer technology take the place of beads, fabrics, stones and metal.

[0] Using wampum as an example again – the materials themselves were common however energy was required to collect shells/teeth/furs etc – energy that could otherwise be used to collect food, repair huts, make clothing etc. Money abstracts this cost, but it's still there effectively

[1] http://szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html

Well as the article points out, the beats didn't require much "energy" to produce either.

beats didn't require much "energy" to produce

I think the point is that the "energy" isn't what was required to make the product, it was the energy expended to acquire the it. Collecting shells means time spent not collecting food. Wearing the shells signifies a kind of wealth where you have an abundance of time and thus an abundance of resources. Spending hard earned money on shitty earphones is a similar kind of wealth.

Beats is a brand for suckers. The great thing about them, though, is their brightly-coloured products stand out so well, it's easy to spot all the stooges in the room.

The referenced Bolt blog post is a bit more substantial: https://medium.com/@BoltVC/how-it-s-made-series-beats-by-dre...

Thanks for the link. Both are good.

I wonder exactly how many grams and millimeters smartphones have to be, to get to the point where they are so thin and light they go beyond feeling premium and fall into the valley of "cheap"?

TL;DR: they put little metal weights inside of them

I had a cheap chinese camera as a kid. Dropped it and it broke open. There were lead weights inside it. Similar technique.

In the old modem/shareware days we used to stuff random noise files into the .ARC files to make it look like our games were full of awesome things. If a game was 60K, it must be good!

I own Audio-Technica ATH-M50's. Way better.

It seems obvious that the best headphones for any recording are whatever the mixing engineer used. Any seeming improvement caused by other gear suggests a deficiency in either the engineer or one's self (whether in hearing or in equipment.) The answer in most cases would suggest that the consumer has worse taste and worse gear than the professionals.

Perhaps every recording should list what headphones were used during the final mix.

Actually you'd want the mastering engineer's gear, not the mix engineer. And they both almost never use headphones to do the bulk of their work - it's almost always specialized studio monitors.

Then you should be listening with a single speaker FM radio or whatever they use for speakers at Wal-mart.

Pop music is made to spread

Haha, isn't that the truth :)

Using nice headphones with Top-40 pop music is like using a Ferrari to do the grocery shopping with the kids. If you're gonna listen to it, you might as well do it with your phone speaker turned up as loudly as possible, as that's the purpose of the music, to get as many people listening to it as possible.

I said it because when I was in the music industry, we did our final pre-mastering studio mix on a pair of shitty $10 computer speakers - it has to sound ok everywhere, not just on your $1k+ studio monitors

A $23 pair of Sennheisers http://amzn.com/B003LPTAYI has better sound than any pair of Beats.

My snotty nephew wanted a pair of beats for Christmas, I recommended they get him these instead. He wanted Beats, they got him the beats - he promptly broke them. Money well spent.

They're more of a fashion statement than anything I guess.

Because your nephew didn't wan't headphones he wanted beats... if that makes any sense...

You can buy a $2 plain tshirt that will last longer than a $450 Givenchy one.

People care about how they look. It isn't some new concept.

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

I can buy an amazing $200 pair of headphones though. The $450 T-shirt works no better than the $2 one.

Depends on your definition of "works". If "works" means "looks fashionable" and "impresses your peers", then the $450 shirt is works a hell of a lot better.

Went and looked at these t-shirts, you can get just as visually appealing ones for $20. The only impression your trying to make with such a shirt is "I have so much money I don't know things value"

Depends heavily on your peers.

I think my audio technicas look just as cool as beats, if not better.

So do tell us, what $200 headphones are so much better than beats?

Sennheiser HD 202 IIs are lousy compared to pretty much every Beats.

Actually they're largely more accurate. My personal favorite headphones, the AKG K240s even more so. Hell, you can get almost any set of Sony MDRs for a fraction of the price and they're insanely accurate. Not hugely comfortable, but accurate.

http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&gra...

That's another thing that many Beats-critics miss: there are features in addition to accuracy that headphone buyers evaluate. Mic, detachable cable, looks, comfort, portability, etc. For many/most people, marginally better accuracy isn't near the top.

Wait so does this mean, that buying a 10$ Chinese Beats knockoff is as good as buying an original one.

Impossible, since the Beats are the $10 Chinese-made knockoffs.

Bought into the hype early on, bought a pair of the in-ear headphones. A month in the left earpiece stopped working. Tried the solos, sounded like utter crap, no way can they justify the price. I'm no audiophile, but they also sound like utter crap.

It'll be interesting to see if the quality eventually changes now that Apple owns them.

I've used Bose earbuds for half a decade or more, and you can pry them from my cold dead hands.

This is just stupid. The going rate for "good" headphones is $200. Neither article makes any attempt to explain how the supposed corner cutting leads to worse sound. Further, brand name items have always been sold for higher margins and it's always been both a function of quality and aspiration.

I don't have beats, and I haven't tried any out in awhile, but I liked their bass heavy sound when I used them for a few seconds. I also think they're good looking headphones. Some people are willing to pay for that. Doesn't seem like it's a big deal.

You're not so much paying for a good look as you are for their marketing costs. Unfortunately if consumers don't educate themselves, they end up paying via ads and marketing.

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