How Beats by Dr. Dre played the world ......

How about $3.00 worth of cloth being sold as a $300 dress? Or a $5 bottle with $1.00 ingredients inside being sold as $100 perfume?

This is the oldest economic story in the world.....buy low, sell high. Why should we (individually or collectively) care about someone else's business model?

 

The $5 perfume actually smells good. The $300 headphones stink.

 

"Bass heavy" is a little bit inaccurate. They've got a massive mid-bass peak, but there is absolutely no low bass at all. They're also extremely scooped in the low mid-range. I instantly get a headache every time I listen to music on them. Awful.

I don't do that. A few of my friends have asked my opinion of the Beats headphones and I just tell them straight up how I feel.

 

The jewelry business is a huge business. It can be a bracelet with $30 to $100 charms or, rings, earrings, or whatever. Many people like bling. We get are underwear knotted up when we hope we don't fall into the trap of buying something for "how it looks", as it bothers us that we might fall into the trap. As we know, "it is not what it is, but what it does". Many still do't.

 

They got to him!!! ;-)

 

I'm going to the CanJam Socal this weekend and was hoping that Beats would be there, but they probably won't be. I would like to hear them for myself and compare them to my Beyerdynamics and Sennheisers. I bought Beats Solo2 headphones as Xmas presents for some teenage relatives. They love them and they have better hearing than I do.

 

Beats by Dr. Dre is just another notch in an age old situation. Where you stand on the practice depends on your perspective. From a marketing stance this has worked out better than one could imagine. I am not a fan of cheating or lying and many may call foul due to the price asked as opposed to the cost to produce. But when one examines how the headphones were sold to the user one must be compelled to realize the buyer was aware of what they were getting. I have seen, and still see, Beats headphones all over the place. They almost always have their own end cap station with a set of headphones for you to demo before purchase. The display looks good and has many catchy items to draw the customer in...good marketing. The customer has the opportunity to listen to songs through the Beats headphones and determine if the purchase is a value to them, regardless of price. Unless the headphones on display are different from those one can purchase there is no cheat or lie in my mind. When the customer has decided to purchase for reasons other than empirical data can prove then that purchase becomes a value only to them for reasons only they understand. YES, many Beats were purchased as a fashion statement...so what? Cars, homes, power tools, audio equipment, clothing and accessories and many, many other items we see every day are purchased because of a perceived status rather than any kind of tangible data. Beats is just another in a long, long, long line of products that were not as great as perceptions made them out to be. I, personally, use this as an opportunity to teach my kid about marketing, popular style, and real world proof and individual value. We tested some of my different headphones against a friends Beats and my kid chose a pair of Grado SR-80's as the best of the bunch. When price was used as part of the value system the Grado's were, to her anyway, the best value.

 

I told him I wouldn't buy them. That wasn't the sole data point for him to consider though.

 

Well, at least we can agree that a) the bass is screwed up, and b) the headphones sound bad.

 

What I don't understand is why AKG, Sennheiser, etc are so clueless about marketing their goods to the masses. To me, the success of Beats is the perfect illustration of the incompetence of traditional 'audiophile' companies...

 

I'm at a lot of high school sporting events as part of my job, and it's easy to see that most of the athletes getting pumped up before their wrestling match or game or whatever are sporting a shiny pair of Beats 'phones. Not most in a "mostly" sort of way, but most in an "almost everyone". It's to the point that Beats absolutely dominates the youth market by such a large margin I wonder if other makers even want to waste time and marketing funds on it.

The most common non-Beats user is probably listening with the stock white Apple buds, but those are surprisingly far and few between now. Sometimes I'll see a Koss or Sennheiser out there, and when I do I almost want to chase down the kid and congratulate him/her on making good decisions.

On the up side, I can't remember the last time I saw a kid wearing Bose 'phones. Their parents, on the other hand...

dan c

 

False.

A force is a push or pull upon an object resulting from the object's interaction with another object. Whenever there is an interaction between two objects, there is a force upon each of the objects. When the interactionceases, the two objects no longer experience the force. Forces only exist as a result of an interaction.

 

It's probably an over-simplification to say you can either put your eggs in the R&D basket or the marketing/advertising/branding basket, but it probably has a lot to do with it.

I used to work in an industry where the smaller players constantly tried to sell products by innovation, slick features, value adds, etc, only to have their lunch eaten by the big dog that did none of these things, choosing to plaster ads on the side of every bus in every big city instead.

 

I am going to guess long standing corporate culture. They are devoted to gaining market share though making the best products and focus on that outcome. If they put too much into marketing they will lose their core demographic and credibility.

Akg stays in business selling very expensive microphones to world class recording studios. If they were to pay labron james to start wearing their headphones at nba games it would damage the brand. People that pay for substance might take issue with the investment into style.

likewise, beats would have a real credibility issue if they were to try to gain market share in the established audiophile community.

 

I hand it to Dr. Dre all day long. All he had to do was make them sexy...and he did. Suckers came out in droves and bought them. After Monster was cut out of the deal, they tried to strike back with their own sexy headphones and failed miserably. Apple likely won't do anything to make them better because there's no motivation. They'll sell no matter what they do. Also, Apple is hardly known for great headphones so they likely wouldn't even know where to begin.

Ed

 

I refuse to wear headphones that big at the gym for two reasons:

1) they totally would throw off my balance if I was doing any kind of movement, particularly situps or cardio

2) anybody who does serious workouts sweats like a pig, and nothing is more icky and nasty that drenched, sweatified headphones.

For both reasons, I'm much happier just using in-ear buds that fit tight enough that it excludes 75% of all the noise at the gym. They weigh about 1 ounce, never fall out, and there's no sweat issues.

If I buy a Ferrari rather than a Ford Escort, or if I buy a Mercedes S550 rather than a Lincoln, those cars have demonstrably better performance and a much higher pricetag. I believe it's possible to get perceived status and higher performance. Beats Headphones are just sizzle and no steak. There's a huge difference between the two.

I have no problem with expensive components that are extremely well-made, work very well, and also have snob appeal. You can argue that tons of high-end audio gear has all three. But marketing $300 headphones that actually sound much worse than $100 headphones is just fraudulent.

 

I suspect part of the reason Apple bought them was because they admired their marketing ability... Very similar model to Apple's... Make product that large numbers regard as a "must have" regardless of price/feature set. People who are paying $500 for Beats phones are likely not reading headphone reviews, studying frequency response graphs, etc..

And people who are standing line overnight to grab the next generation iPhone are not doing a price/benefit analysis of smartphones. They are buying an image/lifestyle. And will be standing in line again in 12 months...

 

...And now we've reached the part of the thread where we compare everything else we don't like to Beats headphones.

 

Well, actually no... I was merely responding to the prior post speculating on whether or not Apple would look to change the design etc.

Trust me, there are lots of things I don't like more than iPhones...

 

Sure, and I agreed on that part. If only I'd stopped reading.

 

One thing about Beats. That Teflon coated cable is freaking genius. If I could replace those on my GR10's with that, I would do it in a heartbeat.

 

I agree 100% with Vidiot. I work with Middle School students and I've brought in headphones, AKG, Senn., and an old set of Koss, for the kids to A/B with The Beats. 7 out of 10 are amazed at what they can hear with headphones other than Beats.
But to suggest that they (really their parents) are not socially forced to buy them is incorrect. You must remember that their peers hold an amazing amount of influence in their lives and fitting in is, unfortunately, one of the guiding elements. So if Johnny is wearing Beats, (notice I said wearing!), to be 'in' I must wear them too. This social pressure is huge at this age. And don't believe for a minute that the marketers didn't realize this during their marketing plan.
I had one kid say, "Man, I feel ripped off." Reminded me of the old Johnny Rotten quote!
I don't respect this business plan. If they delivered 1/2 of what the price reflects, I would have no problem.

 

If only I'd stopped writing...

Full disclosure, I am posting from an iPad.

 

I thought the purpose of the SH website was to promote better sound.

 

I was looking for a good pair of headphones and borrowed the top end Beats for a few weeks. Really bass heavy and unnatural sounding. I ended up with a very nice pair of Audio-Technicas and then recently bought a pair on Sennheissers on Black Friday. Very happy with both purchases and both together cost me less than a pair of Beats.