Monster Beats BY Dr.dre TOUR

Forgot About Dre?

Earphones; they're a necessary evil aren't they? I mean, the wires become tangled, they fall out of your ears and sometimes they don't work full stop, however, where would we be without them? Unless you're a 15 year old chav, listening to music through the speakers of your phone is just socially unacceptable, so a pair of earphones are a bare essential in the 21st century, but with the market flooded with so many different brands claiming to achieve all sorts of wonderful feats, it becomes a chore just finding a pair that's right for you. So hopefully I'll be able to help out with the search a little with my experience of the much hyped Beats By Dre earphones.

Availability

With hype, comes expense and of course with the Dr Dre name attached to it (if you haven't heard of him, Google him) then you can expect that price to skyrocket until it lands at a catastrophic £179. These headphones can be brought cheaper, but I decided to spend a little more on Littlewoods, my thinking being as there are a lot of fakes on the market (these are easily spotted if you know what you're looking for) and I wanted to know that I was getting the real thing for my money and I also had the option to take out care insurance, which for the price I paid I thought was necessary. After looking online I would be dubious about spending anything less than £80 for a pair of these headphones as the market is currently flooded with fakes.

First Impressions

As soon as these arrived by courier, it was obvious they weren't your standard pair of £9.99 earphones you'll get from Argos. The packaging alone screams quality. They come packaged in a large sturdy box which opens out to give more information on the headphones. The box itself slides out of the cardboard and opens up to reveal the earphones securely wrapped, you also get a bag of different ear buds to enable you to choose which ones are right for you, there's an instruction book, and when I say book, I mean book! It's all pretty simple stuff here, but the way it's presented to you shows the time and effort that's gone into these earphones and it makes you feel like you're getting exactly what you paid for. The packaging also showcases the Beats By Dre trademark colour scheme of black on red, which I thought was a nice touch.

Features

My last pair of earphones were by Sennheiser and I couldn't fault them, they were known as noise isolating earphones and they worked extremely well. These Dre earphones don't have that name tag attached to them (they don't need to with everything else going for them) but don't doubt that they do isolate the noise fantastically well, given you're using the right ear buds for your ears. The Sennheiser also utilised volume control on the wiring, which Dre Beats also do, but I must say they do it with a lot more finesse. There's a little control pad which sits just below your neck when the earphones are in and the volume control works on a flip switch, pressing up turns the volume up, pressing down turns it down, simple enough I'm sure you'll agree. There's also a silver middle button which does a range of different things to varying degrees of success. Pressing it once pauses the songs, which I've had no problems with whatsoever. Pressing it twice will skip to the next song and this is where problems occur. You need to press twice in quick succession otherwise the earphones assume that you're just trying to pause the song and you'll be left wondering when the next song is going to start which will eventually lead to you taking your iPod out of your pocket and doing it manually, completely eliminating the need to use hands free controls in the first place. To be fair though this isn't a major issue and once you get used to pressing the button in quick succession you'll get it right 90% of the time. Pressing it three times will take you back to the previous song, or take you back to the start of the song you're listening to if it's been playing more than a few seconds. A handy little feature which again encounters the same issue that the skip feature does, although I tend not to use this feature all that much.

Hands Free

Beats by Dre also work as a hands free kit when plugged into your phone. The microphones is situated where the volume controls are, which as aforementioned lay just below your neck (the ideal place for this feature) and to answer a call you just press the pause button and the nifty little feature actually works extremely well with both parties able to hear each other very well. Of course if you're in a noisy atmosphere this does affect the quality of the conversion, but overall everything is crisp and clear.

iPod or iPhone?

The hands free feature isn't something that's utilised an awful lot in my case though as I use these earphones in conjunction with my iPod Touch 4th Generation. On the box it states that the product is suitable for the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad, no mention of the iPod Nano or Classic or indeed any other phone/MP3 player. Well I can't profess to have used it with a Nano or Classic, however I have used it with my Samsung Galaxy S and it's worked perfectly well, so I would assume it'd work with most phones/MP3 players which utilise the standard headphone jack, although I would steer on the side of caution as where I bought these from (Littlewoods) they made it clear to me that the product is non-returnable unless faulty.

Ease Of Use

These come with a standard cable length, enabling the user to place their iPod into a pocket or even into a bag without any pull on the wire. There is a little clip included in the box which attaches to the wire and then clips onto clothing or a bag strap to stop them being pulled from your ears which can otherwise happen as these do seem slightly more weighty than your average pair of earphones. Since arriving I've changed the ear buds for a pair that slot into my ear canal and they're actually very comfortable and stay in place more than the standard buds do. I've been out walking when it's been very windy and these will remain in place and they're also perfectly suited to exercise. One of the best but most simple features regarding these earphones is that they're tangle free, due to the material used for the wiring even if they do become tangled they will easily slide back into place with minimal effort.

Sound Quality

Of course the most important factor regarding a pair of earphones is the sound quality and these don't disappoint, they're definitely better than my former pair of Sennheisers but do they live up to the hype surrounding them? Maybe not. When advertised you see a clip of Dr Dre claiming that when you listen to music via earphones you don't really hear everything, however the Beats earphones allow you to hear everything. Well, to be honest I'm not hearing anything that I didn't hear before through previous earphones but I am hearing what I heard before at an elevated level. The bass on these is fantastic and even at a low volume the bass really shines through and impresses everytime. Everything heard is clear and crisp with these earphones and I really cannot fault the sound quality (even if there is a little bit of false advertising thrown in there). Sound doesn't escape from these earphones either which is a feature I always like to have if I'm listening to bit of Britney or Take That and I'd rather people around me weren't aware of it!

Styling

Last but not least has to be the styling of these. A few years back Apple came out with the white earphones which defined a generation, the white cable told people that you had an iPod and that you were automatically 'cool'. Nowadays the red cable of the Beats earphones is the new style icon in the music industry. You'll see them in music videos of the huge stars (Bad Meets Evil) and this of course has echoed down onto the high street, with these now being the must have musical accessory.

If you love music, you'll love Beats By Dre

Highly recommended.