HTC disses Dr Dre by diluting Beats deal Taiwanese handset maker HTC has pulled around half of its stake in Beats Electronics, the audio kit maker co-founded by US hip hop star Dr Dre, less than a year after buying a 51 per cent majority share in the company. HTC said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing that it sold 25 per cent of its stake in the company for $150m. …
Hardly supprising. Beats HTC phones looked awesome, until everyone realised it was just a sound profile, that improved the sound of most headphones.
Being Android, the profile was being loaded onto various other phones within a week, and all advantage of Beats was lost.
Had HTC actually put some great audio hardware into the phone, rather than just a cheap bodge, it may have been a very different story.
No. You pay over 100 pounds for a bright red pair of earphones that make SOME music sound better (specifically that with heavy bass).
Anyone who appreciates a wide variety of music would go for a decent make (such as Sennheiser, Bose, AKG or Beyer Dynamic) at around the same price point or higher.
"Anyone who appreciates a wide variety of music would go for a decent make (such as Sennheiser, Bose, AKG or Beyer Dynamic) at around the same price point or higher."
THIS.
How to tell if your expensive headphones are shit: did you buy them from HMV?
The Beats range is much like the Skullcandy range. They made a set of headphones that are superior to iPod earbuds (as challenging as getting drunk), but are still ultimately pretty mediocre, and then sold them to people who don't know better, who now brand themselves audiophiles. They're no better than buying a pair with "super bass boost" written on them. You're getting a shit pair of headphones.
So why do you need things like a headphone cable and stuff? If it's just about how it looks, then make it just about how it looks.
Ferraris look great. But they also happen to have superb performance, and their shape is largely dictated by their performance. A Ferrari which looked like the most amazing car ever invented but which got beaten at the traffic lights by Segways would not be considered a great idea. Why should other functional things like headphones be different?
That's her choice, but the marketing tells you how great they sound, and uses that as a justification for the price.
The thing is for me. I do not care how good the headphones look (in fact, going through Lewisham of an evening, it's probably best they are as unobtrusive as possible). I care how they sound. I used to have a set of Bang and Olufsen headphones. They made me look as though I was wearing a girl's hair band. I still wore them. Why? Because they made pretty much every song I played through them sound good.
I am not knocking Beats headphones without trying them. On the contrary, before I bought my current Sennheisers, I tried several pairs of Beats headphones, some of which were noticably more expensive than the Sennys. I tried them with a few different kinds of music as well.
That's actually the best advice I can give for anyone buying headphones. Before parting with your cash, ask to try a few sets of headphones with different kinds of music.
Think you are missing the point ... that statement should read
"You spend over a hundred quid for - presumably -" the brand name "Then you wear them OVER your hoodie." so everyone can see how much you spent on them.
Rather like the way a certain segement of middle-aged women used to wear headscarfs etc that had to be precisely arranged so that the appropriately posh label was visible.
I must admit, I like the Beats on my One X... no way I'd use the bundled headphones though, they are flipping awful! I bought a pair of House of Marley Redemption Song to replace a pair of Klipsch S4A (they started to shred themselves) and they blow the bundled Beats out of the water massively, and have fantastic build quality. I tried out some of the other Beats headphones at the airport once and I saw nothing special, even in the over ear stuff... not a patch on the HD595s, even though mine have the horrid microcrack problem and need replacing... though in their defence they have done 4 years or so
House of Marley headphones are not that bad. They my be the only "celebrity" branded headphones that are not just trading on the name. "I am not Bob Marley fan" I got a pair simply because they had them at the pawnshop and I was short on cash .
They sound a LOT better than Beats and at about half the price in their top of the line. Beats are horrible. If all you want is bass I guess the have a reason to exist. Try listening to anything else but rap and hip-hop with Beats and its just sad. I like art and prog rock, I put a demo pair of Beats through their paces and anything but bass was just a joke, seriously, beats make Apple earbuds look good. Its really that bad.
I'm not normally swayed by celebrity endorsed products or what not, but they have an absolutely brilliant build quality and they also sound very good... The Klipsch S4A are regarded as a very good pair of headphones in their price range, and in my opinion the House of Marley ones are better. They are probably the only celeb headphones not trading on name alone. You might be surprised, I certainly was.
Htc and Lg are stupid enough to ship a glasses free 3d phone which impresses everyone (including iphone fanatics) when they experience it.
The stupid part? Idiots forgot to show it in a proper way, e.g. Providing demo stands so auto stereoscopic phones were served turned off, next to ordinary models with a bulkier look& price. Guess what everyone bought in such circumstances? Samsung.
A quick Google search for "Samsung ICEpower" doesn't return any results from the last few years... Samsung had announced around 2008 with some fanfare their collaboration with Bang and Olufsen subsiduary ICEpower, to provide Class D amps for their phones. I'm not clear on what 'Beats technology" is; I suspect that there is no such thing.
I think ASUS have more recently released laptops with Bang and Olufsen printed on them- just as Apple used to with Harmon Kardon... it just seems the easiest way to communicate to consumers that 'our laptop sounds less tinny than your existing laptop', because it is hard to communicate that message with figures, as you would say CPU performance.
Personally, I tend to lose earphones, so don't pay silly money for them. The ones that came with my Sony phone are good enough.
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