The sound of the Beats Studio had "haunted" me since, as I searched in vain for a cheaper and better quality pair of headphones which matched or beat that sound. I tried pairs from Grado, Ultimate Ears, Sennheiser, Bose, but never felt satisfied with the sound quality as I had with the Beats Studio. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I learned that these headphones, the Beats Solo, were coming out. I saw that the price was below two-hundred USD and ordered them immediately. My hope was that the sound quality would be just as good as the more expensive Beats Studio.
These headphones have met all my expectations. The sound is truly amazing and I can clearly hear so much detail in my music. The headphones do a swell job of projecting the background detail enough, but not too much that it drowns out the rest of the music. Also, the bass is slightly amplified so you hear some slight "thump thump" but is definitely not overpowering like "THUMP! THUMP!"
Yes, the bass is amazing, but the mid-range is blown out and not at all natural sounding for most music. Even worse the highs are very weak and it seemed like I was missing a lot of the high range while listening to the music. For example, many female singers sounded distant and muffled. I am not an audiophile, but I had a pair of Sony v900 studio headphones which had recently given out after 10 years of use, which the Beats solo were supposed to replace. The v900's had far better balance and a much more natural sound than the Beats, and I only paid $150 compared to the $180 for the Beats.
Three months have passed since our first contact with Beats. With no fewer two dozen phone calls and endless "hold" times, we've spoken with 14 "support" people, traded a dozen emails, explained the situation to them ad nauseum, and even written company president Luke Wood- absolute silence has consistently been their response. To add insult to injury, after we volunteered to pay for the repair, Beats says they do not have a repair facility, but hope to have one up & running "in a few months". We've even gone so far as to write Dr Dre himself on Facebook and Twitter- not surprisingly without any response.
If you want to pay top dollar for an inferior product, have it break because of poor design & cheap materials, and experience complete and total frustration, runaround, excuses and total incompetence, then by all means buy Beats by Dr Dre headphones. Otherwise you'd be better off taking a very close look at the competition. Beats Electronics, and especially Beats headphones have absolutely zero "support". This has got to be far & away the absolute worst business model, bar none, ever.
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