Monster Beats

Summary

The Beats are a set of over-ear headphones created by Monster, with collaboration from renowned rapper, Dr. Dre, and are currently available for $349. The headphones feature active noise cancellation and detailed audio. They also come with a good set of extras, including multiple adapters and two cables, one of which has a microphone. These cords are detatchable, which allow the Beats to easily connect to a home stereo system, providing the user has a long enough audio cable lying around. For those who like portability, the Beats can fold up to minimize the amount of space they take up.

Frequency Response (5.69)

As we speculated in our first look article, the Beats have a relatively flat bass response that’s bumping against the top limit. This means an even-sounding bass that’s slightly emphasized. You can also see there was an odd plummet towards the high end, where the right channel dips below the bottom limit. Towards the high end, it looks like the Beats pick and choose different frequencies to emphasize, leading to an up-and-down scrawl that eventually drops off towards the extreme high end. This series of peaks might make high-pitched sounds seem like they fade in and out slightly, but it’s nothing severe enough for most listeners to notice.

Overall, if it weren’t for that weird plummit in the high-mids, the Beats would’ve had a great frequency response. As it stands, they’re still above average.

Compared to most other active noise-cancellers we’ve reviewed, the Beats have one of the more stable frequency responses we’ve seen. They give a good boost to bass, but that seems to be a trend: the NC500Ds, QuietComfort 3s, and even the Aurvana X-Fi headphones (once you turn the volume up to compensate for their weak response curve) all add a steady emphasis to the bass. The Beats probably wouldn’t be great for purists who want their music to come out of the headphones untampered with, but their response curve is, for the most part, good.

Headphones	Score	Frequency Response
Monster Beats	5.69
Creative Aurvana X-Fi	3.32
Sony MDR-NC500D	4.21
Bose QuietComfort 3	1.66
Sennheiser HD 555	3.44

Distortion (2.03)

When we initially listened to the Beats without music, we noticed the noise cancellation added a noticeable amount of noise. This is probably what that hump around 1 kHz represents. Regardless of the source of the distortion, there’s quite a hump present in the mid-range frequencies that gradually trails off towards the high end. Also notice the right channel bump towards the high end: this corresponds to the sudden drop in decibel level present in our frequency response graph above.

Active noise-cancelling headphones typically don’t have the lowest distortion. Since active noise cancelling involves injecting your playback with extra soundwaves, their relatively low performance isn’t surprising. This being said, the Beats have more of a distortion problem than any of our comparison headphones. These are definitely not headphones for purists.

Headphones	Score	Distortion
Monster Beats	2.03
Creative Aurvana X-Fi	4.81
Sony MDR-NC500D	3.33
Bose QuietComfort 3	10.0
Sennheiser HD 555	13.33

Tracking (3.34)

The Beats have tracking problems. Things to look for that are bad include sudden, dramatic shifts in volume. Such shifts are often jarring to the listener. Again, you can see the frequency response graph’s results present here: the first big shift towards the left channel corresponds to the sudden drop in the right channel’s volume from the frequency response graph.

Well, the Beats didn’t have the worst tracking out of all the headphones we’ve chosen to compare them to, but they came close. The biggest downfall of the Beats is that random drop it has in the right channel. That shift will be more noticeable than any shift on any of the comparison graphs, with the sole exception of the QuietComfort 3s’ quick left-right-left change-up around the same frequency.

Headphones	Score	Tracking
Monster Beats	3.34
Creative Aurvana X-Fi	5.15
Sony MDR-NC500D	6.25
Bose QuietComfort 3	2.49
Sennheiser HD 555	5.59

Maximum Usable Volume (9.07)

The Beats were capable of a pretty good audio level: 116.11 decibels. We award maximum points for 120 decibels, but being less than four decibels shy isn’t that much of a difference. Those who like their music loud should be just fine with the Beats. Of course, one should take caution with anything over 100 decibels, since it’s potentially harmful for your poor little ears. Remember kids, headphones can’t make you deaf: they just help careless people make themselves deafer faster.

Isolation (4.65)

The Beats don’t have the best noise cancellation. Typically the strong suit of active noise cancellation is in the bass frequencies. In this case, however, the active cancellation doesn’t do much. It accounts for less than ten extra decibels blocked out in the bass frequencies. Anything higher-pitched than 1 kHz will get blocked out about regardless of whether the active cancellation is on. The active cancellation actually creates noise towards the high end, causing it to perform worse than if you’d just left cancellation off.

The Beats have really poor noise cancellation for a pair of noise-cancellers. The active cancellation accounts for such a tiny bump that it’s hard to justify its inclusion — especially since the mandatory battery life so limits the Beats’ functionality. In any case, just look at the differences between the Beats and other headphones below. The only pair of headphones with weaker isolation were the Sennheiser HD 555s, and they have semi-open backs (‘open back’ means, instead of being totally enclosed with plastic, the outside of the ear cup is open to the air, letting sound in/out more easily).

Headphones	Score	Isolation
Monster Beats	4.65
Creative Aurvana X-Fi	7.97
Sony MDR-NC500D	5.19
Bose QuietComfort 3	6.28
Sennheiser HD 555	1.18

Leakage (3.33)

The Beats are not headphones to take to the library. We were listening to music at a moderate level and someone a few seats away who was listening to their own music — granted, they were using iPod headphones which aren’t particularly good isolators — and they could hear our playback clear as day. Typically people think of isolation and leakage as the same thing: if you can’t hear anything from around you, you assume no one around you can hear your playback. This isn’t true for active noise-cancelling headphones, because the cancellation happens artificially, within the ear cups. Keep this in mind, because if you’re listening to your music at a moderate level on the bus, chances are the person next to you will be able to hear every note.