[Review] Beats Studio (2013) Headphones
The Beats Studio headphones that I am reviewing today, was released late last year and include some improvements over the last version of the Beats Studio. Now I haven’t personally tried the previous version of the Beats Studio headphones but I have read all about them and so know some if not all changes between the last version and this newer version of the headphones!
Unboxing
The Beats Studio headphones came in a huge, but meticulously designed box. The black and red complimentary colours on the box stand out to you and the pictured headphone on the box will have the colour of your headphone. In this case, mine was black.
The outer cover covers the box and slides out to reveal the entirely-red box. Opening that red box takes you to another cardboard cover, and once that is removed you are greeted with the hard-case that houses the headphones. This is held up by a cardboard sleeve, and once you remove that sleeve by a tab, all the accessories and the manual that came with the Beats Studio are there.
And that is all for the unboxing section!
Design
As always, Beats is known for sophisticated designs and the like, and the new Beats Studios have hidden the screws that keep the headphones together, so now there are no unsightly sights to see. The headband is also smooth all the way across (unless you have extended the headbands to suit your head), but the exterior headband is very prone to fingerprints. I have the black-coloured version here, and it definitely is very noticeable when there is bright light around the headphones. The white-coloured versions may be less visible to fingerprints in the light though.
Just like the previous version of the Beats Studio, this one also can “fold-up” for easy carrying and to slot it into the hard case.
Comfort
The new Beats Studio headphones now have a smooth all-over cushions that are contoured for your ears, as opposed to the wrinkly ones seen in the previous version. This means that they should sit even more comfortably on your ears and they do for me, because they basically cover your entire ears and it feels like seal-proof – no air can enter your ears. This brings me to a problem that may just be related to me, but when wearing these headphones for around 20-30 minutes, my ears get really hot and start to get uncomfortable. I then remove the headphones and let some cool air get to my ears and then am able to wear it again. This could be a bit of a problem for people who get sweaty a lot or easily (like me), as you will be able to feel the heat in your ears after around 30 minutes.
Sound Quality
Listening to the Beats Studio headphones is actually a very pleasant experience in terms of sound quality. Yes, you do get slightly more bass over the treble but both sounds come out very clear.
The headphones are also capable of very loud sounds and currently my laptop’s volume is only at 12 and it is already very loud.
Noise-Cancelling
The headphones come with an active adaptive noise-cancelling feature, which essentially blocks out background noises while listening to them or even if you just turn the headphones on without listening to any music etc. They do have a soft hissing noise when turned on, but it wasn’t excessively loud. Because they are not passive, you are going to have to charge up the headphones in order to be able to listen to your favourite music!
Remote and In-Line Mic
There are two 3.5mm jack cables for the headphones – one without a remote and mic, and one with a remote and mic. The mic works with most devices and those include Android, Windows and Blackberry devices. However, the volume control buttons on the remote only work on supported iDevices. The button on the remote can be used on most devices (not limited to iDevices) to pause/play the music.
Additional Features/Ports
The Beats Studio has a button on the left side of the headphones and when the headphone is turned on and you press and hold down the button, it will slowly decrease the volume and eventually mute it until you stop holding down the button. This also “mutes” the noise-cancelling feature as well along the way.
Another feature on the Beats Studio headphones is the auto on/off function. So if you unplug the jack cable from the headphone itself, the headphone will turn off automatically for you and vice versa. While I found this to be quite a neat feature, I found myself keeping the jack cable plugged into the headphone most of the time, even when I wasn’t using it, which eventually depleted the battery because I forgot to either unplug the cable or turn the headphone off manually.
A new feature added in this version of the Beats Studio is the battery gauge. Yes, Beats have decided to put in a rechargeable battery instead of using AAA batteries in the previous version. This means you can see roughly how much juice you have left in the headphones. The gauge lights has five-levels with one being the lowest of juice and battery is nearly depleted. Beats claim that this can last you around 20-hours in one charge. See below for more battery stats!
Lastly in this section, there are two ports on the headphones – a micro USB port for charging your headphones with the included power adapter and cable, and the headphone jack on the left side of the headphones.
Accessories
The accessories that came with the headphones are the headphones itself, one 3.5mm jack cable without remote and mic, one 3.5mm jack cable with a remote and in-line mic, a USB charging cable, USB wall adapter, hard case for the headphones, a micro-fibre cleaning cloth, a caribiner, some documents i.e the manual, and last but not least, a large meticulous retail box which houses all of the above accessories and headphones!
Battery
As I said above, Beats claim that on one charge, you can get around 20-hours of battery. During my testing on the battery, I could get close to 10 hours of music to my ears in one battery charge. Now I didn’t sit for 10 hours straight listening to the headphones, but I made sure to remember the time I turned on and off the headphones beginning straight after a full charge, then added them all up till when the battery died.
I also tried charging these headphones through an external battery pack (I have the New Trent PowerPak Xtreme 12,000mAh one) and they did work, so you could use one of these to add more juice to your Beats headphones while travelling.
Pricing
Beats is generally known for the huge price tags on most of their audio products, so I am not even going to talk about them being expensive. However, if you are a DJ or audio fanatic that likes listening to more bass than the rest, good sounding quality and don’t mind the huge price tag for this headphone, then by all means go for it! If it suits your tastes and you like it, then go for it! Some headphones may suit one person but may not suit another person so it is all up to you!
Conclusion
Overall, these headphones are very nice sounding headphones, the sound quality and all, but because these are active (and passive) headphones, you will need to have juice (battery) to power your listening and depending on your travel time i.e on an aeroplane, these might not get you to your destination without charging them, or this may result in a very grumpy person!
