Beats Studio Wireless Over-Ear Headphone - Red

As an owner of the original Studio Beats I was hard pressed to spend $300-400 again on another pair of noise canceling headphones. Fortunately, Amazon had a great Goldbox deal around Christmas that made this decision somewhat easier ($275). These headphones are lighter, sleeker and the noise leak is much less than the originals. And best of all, these are Bluetooth wireless. So I've been using these everywhere, from pairing to my iPhone, or my MBP, wireless makes it just so easy to use these whereas with my original headphones I find myself avoiding using them because I would be tethered to something and would be getting tangled up in long extension cables or on a short leash from my phone or computer. Now I can just toss these on and play my audio. That alone makes they pretty compelling upgrade if you own the originals and are looking for an excuse to upgrade.My old pair will be given to my wife or kids to use on the airplane for the noise cancelling capabilities.Sound: These cans still sound great, the sounds stage is still slightly mid-low heavy yes, but I don't find them as heavy on the low end as before. The improved cushioning on the ear pieces might have helped in this regard, because find myself not turning up the volume as much but hearing much better. The highs on these seem a bit more clear than before making these tied for the favorite headphones I own. My Audio-Technica ATH-AD700 were my favorite headphones before I bought these but now they are about neck and neck, Audio-Technica are open air headphones that produce a nice sound stage throughout all frequency ranges, but Beats isn't that far off, and you get many more features (but you're also paying for them too).Noise cancellation: Again with the improved cushioning, these headphones are made much better than the originals. It is far more difficult to hear the outside world with these on my ears even without the headphones on, once I turn the headphones on the active noise cancellation kicks in and it virtually blanks out the outside world. There seems to be an improvement in the noise cancellation as well from the originals because I find myself much less irritated when I use these headphones without audio playing. Sometimes I just need quite and need to concentrate and with the original Beat Studio headphones I found it made a droning/pulsing white noise that would feel a lot like change of pressure in my ears like when you take off on an airplane. It sometimes gave me headaches. With this latest version of the Beats Studio, the droning/pulsing is much less and I can just wear these to give myself some piece and quiet in noisy environments. Once I turn on the audio for music, movies or audiobook, the outside world is pretty much gone.Bluetooth: Bluetooth pairing, simple and easy, turn on the headphones, turn on Bluetooth pairing on your device and when the Beats are connected they will play a little sound bite. When you turn off your Beats or your Bluetooth on your device, the headphones will play a different sound bite. If you need to switch from one Bluetooth source to another, simply turn off the Bluetooth or disconnect the Beats on one device and connect on the other. Makes switching from iPhone to Mac very easy. You can skip tracks with the headphone, change volume and start and stop audio (or video if you're watching something) right from the headphone left side controls.Battery: Charge time seems fairly normal, you can get about 80% charge within an hour. Though I haven't timed from completely drained battery to full, I don't think it takes more than 3 hours to get a full charge. The headphones last a while so you should be able to get an entire day of audio play if you need to. Good enough battery life for most long flights or frequent use. The only disappointing feature I find with these headphones is that I cannot switch out batteries if I need to. I haven't tried pulling off one of the covers but it looks like the side cover can be removed if you have a small screwdriver.Weight: These headphones feel significantly lighter than the original Beats Studio headphones I own. They are overall a smaller profile making packing and traveling with these much easier. The case is about 30% smaller than the original but lacks an internal pocket for holding accessories but so long as you can pack away a micro-USB charge cable somewhere you should be good to go.Appearance: Comes in many different colors and I like the titanium colored ones I purchased. They are unintrusive looking and keep a low profile. But there are several other color combinations to fit your style. Before Beats introduced other colors, for better or worse you had to look a bit obnoxious, somewhat like Ed Hardy shirts 5 years ago. With the white or gold colored headphones they look "softer", matte finishes look a bit more masculine and bold solid colors like red and blue for those people that like to stand out.Overall: These headphones are spendy but if you can afford them they are definitely worth it. The build quality is superb and the noise cancellation and sound quality are top notch. Even if you owned an older version like I do, these are worth looking at and even replacing the originals.

Ok, so here's my review of the new Beats Studio Wireless. I want to talk about each aspect individually so you know what you're getting. I hope this helps.Sound qualityBefore I start talking about sound quality, please understand that 1) I haven't listened to many high quality headphones so I don't have much to compare it to and 2) I love bass so if you don't like much bass these might not sound quite as good to you as they did to me. So sound quality is one of the most important qualities of a pair of headphones, and I'm happy to say that Beats nailed it in that regard. The music sounds very clear and they are actually fun to listen to. The bass does sound awesome and the highs and mids are nice to. I also love that I can listen to different genres of music and experience the same great sound. For example, I listened to a song with a lot of vocals and not much bass and it still sounded very good. Now I've heard that these may not produce accurate sound, but I don't really care that much. I mainly use these to listen to music and my main goal for listening to music is to have fun, and I definitely achieve that goal when I listen to these headphones.Comfort and FitThis was another area that was very important to me as I wanted to be able to wear these headphones for a long time. I was happy to find that they are very comfortable headphones. Since they are over-ear, they don't put any pressure on the ears whatsoever. The ear-cups are very soft and the headband has sufficient padding as well. The one problem I did experience is that they clamp a little harder than I expected, however this is not a big problem (the good thing about this is that I do not have to worry about it falling off my head at all) Also, I've heard these do heat up on your ears but I have done household chores and such in them and they didn't get to the point where they were uncomfortable. Overall, these are a comfortable pair of headphones that I can wear for a long time.Update: So I've had my beats for a while now and the clamping problem is not as bad as it was. They are very comfortable now and I don't have any problems in that area. My guess is that either they've loosened up after a while or my ears have gotten used to wearing them. Anyways, they are very comfortable now.Design and FeaturesI purchased the glossy black version of these and I love it. They look amazing. They don't look or feel too big, and they are very sleek. They also feel fairly sturdy and very high quality. As far as features go, I love the fact that they can fold up into a more compact design. I also love the noise cancellation. It does work very well to block out sound, and with the music playing I can hardly hear anything (other than the music obviously). If you listen very carefully, you can hear a very quiet hiss while the music is paused, but I can't usually hear it while the music is playing. The battery indicator is nice, and the play/pause buttons and the up and down volume buttons are great too. They are built into the left ear-cup, and you can't tell they are there if you didn't know better.AccessoriesThe accessories it came with are very handy, including a hard carrying case, a charging cable with a usb to outlet converter, an auxiliary cable with control talk, and a regular auxiliary cable. The case does a very nice job of protecting the headphones, and even matches the style perfectly. The cables also seem to be very high quality and seem to be durable.Wrap-upAs I said, these are great headphones and I would recommend them to anyone. For the average person wanting a nice pair of headphones, they sound awesome and are fun to listen to. They are also comfortable to wear and offer a premium design. Overall, I am very happy with my purchase of the Beats Studio Wireless headphones.