Monster and Dr. Dre: Beats Headset
Joining the mob of celebrities who endorse things, Dr. Dre has teamed up with Monster to create a headset worthy of his name: the Monster Beats By Dr. Dre. The headset, originally announced at CES in January, will be available for purchase in mid-July, says Monster.
A few folks from Monster visited our offices today to give us an audio preview of the headset (look for a review very soon on PCMag.com; we’ll link to it when it pubs). Click through the jump for some initial impressions.
This headset is all about providing a very wide dynamic range to the listener, without stinting on bass, according to Monster–what they called “speaker-driven technology.” The Beats are also noise-canceling. The reps assured us that Dre has overseen every step of the headset’s development to make sure the sound is as good as it can be. (No, he didn’t show up today, sadly… he’s in the studio working on “Detox,” we’re told.)
Our audio expert Tim Gideon, intern Jared, and I each got a quick listen to a bass-heavy Kanye West song. We were all impressed–the sound was fantastic. I don’t think I’ve ever heard (and felt) bass like that on any headset before. It was hard to judge how wide the full dynamic range is; and the headset we listened to, though close to final, isn’t quite there. But I will go out on a limb and say that this is one product audiophiles as well as hip-hop fans will salivate over. Will they pay $350 for them? We’ll opine on that after Tim’s full review.
The Beats headset will come with 2 cables, one compatible with the iPhone and capable of muting the music when a call comes in. There’s also a mute button on one of the phones. The packaging is slick, all blacks and reds, with a “keepsake″ box. More details to follow!
Original post by Carol Mangis